City: H 405
by TheKyttin13
Summary: At eighteen years old, Jimmy wants to share one final adventure with Cindy, Libby, Carl, and Sheen, but due to a scientific error of astronomical odds, the fight for their survival begins. They must once again come together and fight as they fall apart at the seams with only one thought driving them forward: getting back home. Rating tentative.
1. Three Years Too Deep

**_A/N: Kyttin is back. Yes he is. Oh, yes he is. And he has yet another story to post. Oh, yes he does. You'd better fuckin' believe it!_**

**_I'm only in a halfway decent mood at the moment, so I'll get right to the point: all of my other works are either done or discontinued. Period. Anyone who wants to pick up where I left off, please feel free to do so. I MIGHT come back and write Pushed to Breaking Point Part II, but I don't know yet. That all depends on my inspiration...and on this story._**

**_I forewarn you: this piece is long because I have a lot going on and a lot to say. It's not long because I choose to impose a word count on myself; the minimum I must write is 5,000 words for the main body of the chapter (excluding the italics at the end). That's the only requirement I have is 5k. It's easy to reach, considering how much I have to say about what's going on._**

**_Word Count: 8'363 (MSWord 2010); 8'367 (FFnet)_**

**_This story is also available on the I Dream of Jimmy forums. If you choose to visit and get the most up-to-date version of my story (with the most up-to-date list of chapters), please be sure to review and thank Mara S. for all of her hard work. She's an inspiration to everyone._**

**_I don't need a disclaimer cuz I'm just that awesome. And it's fanfiction. Nothing here is owned by anyone, save maybe the plot-line and self-interpreted characterizations. Don't ask why, it just is._**

**_But now that I've talked my ass off, as usual, I present to you the first chapter of what will hopefully be a long, long work. Here we have..._**

* * *

_City: H-405  
Chapter 1: Three Years Too Deep_

_Thud. Thud-thud._

A pair of glowing green eyes darted left and right, up and down, alert and overly cautious. One hundred yards to their left, a pair of sparkling blue eyes did much the same in the opposite direction. A breeze ruffled the long, dirtied blonde locks of the green-eyed girl, her brown-haired male companion pausing in his surveillance.

It was three years before that they had come to the surface of the corrupted Earth. What had started as a graduation gift for the five college-bound friends had turned into a raging bloodhunt to destroy all of civilized humanity in a parallel timeline, a fight that had ended the lives of three from the group. The remaining two were known as the Elite Alumni, the only two to have survived so long in search of the answer to the end of the Chaos.

The Parallel had been overtaken by a megalomaniac with an insurmountable power and aeons of history to bolster the movement. The One, as it was called, had an intelligence the likes of which had never been seen before, and had developed full-body plate-shield armor that protected and supercharged the body within, arming it with whatever weapon was pre-signed to the coded script within the mainframe of the suit. It wasn't on any technological grid, was invisible to radar, and was so unique that only three persons possessed it: The One and the Elite Alumni.

How the Parallel had degenerated was no mystery: The One had overtaken with a surprising ease, then had begun a totalitarian nuclear war with the rest of the godforsaken planet. Skies had turned reddish brown from radiation poisoning. Soldiers had all long since died. Now, robots guarded the city. Huge, twelve-foot-tall hulking beasts that looked as though they were made of scrap metal and nuclear fusion energy. They were lethal at best, cataclysmic at worst.

The Civil Defense Force wasn't the only worry, however. The Alumni had to watch out for mutations that had occurred in the gene pool. Hellhounds – dogs with rabies, two sets of razor-sharp teeth, six legs armed with six claws each, and three tails hanging from the backs of their rotted, degenerative skin, their fur having long since rotted off – and Zombies – humans whose brains had become swollen under radiation and had pressed against the cranium so long that all reason and virtue was replaced by nothing but sin and ravagement, coupled with elongated arms possessing hooked claws and talons for feet – were among the most common of beasts that existed in The Nether outside of Chaos. As it was, the green pair of eyes watched a small pack of four Hellhounds from their sunken, sleepless sockets. They were miles outside of Chaos, somewhere just on the outskirts of The Nether.

The dogs circled each other somewhat confusedly before sniffing the air all in perfect unison. They then lowered their heads and began trotting toward the base of the hill the green-eyed figure perched. She stiffened.

"James, they smell us," she lisped into her half-face visor.

"Four of them?" came the reply, clear as if he'd been whispering in her own ear right beside her.

"Yes. Four. The leader seems to be communing an attack for them to deploy. We must be the targets."

"We don't have proof of that. Hold your ground. If they begin a rapid attack approach, decimate them."

"Affirmative."

She inhaled slowly, calming her roiling nerves. James always knew the strategy. He was the absolute best. He knew everything about every creature they'd ever met, and even knew things that she couldn't begin to consider could be known. What's more, the man was excellent at doing a cold read. He could encounter an enemy he'd never seen before and find most, if not all, of its critical points and attack them all in proper succession to bring the foe down. He was a genius if nothing else and had been since childhood. Though, neither of them could have ever foreseen that they'd be warped into a demented, hellish place formerly known as Earth. It was too disgusting to be called reality. And yet, there they stood, haggard, dirty, and wielding weapons hijacked from Chaos itself, their armor testament to their value, dead or alive, to The One. After all, they'd had to steal the suits right out from under The One's nose.

She could see every huff of breath the decaying dogs let out, every puff of footstep they took on the dark red soil. Blood had been shed on just about every spot on the face of The Parallel, for better or for much much worse.

"Four bogeys inbound from the north. Appears to be four dogs; one alpha, three canines. Targets positioned at one hundred fifty yards, approach at three yards per second."

"Hold," came the whispered reply. They could only ever whisper to one another through the half-face helmets. Speaking would alert creatures from miles around to their presence, and whispering to one another openly was risky, as it put two targets in the same place at once and opened an opportunity for communication to be breached. The suits were secure and had their own tracer codes. They couldn't be overridden from anywhere or anything; not even The One possessed technology sufficient enough to overpower the suit. At least, not that they knew. A lot had changed in three years.

"Approach quickened to four yards per second."

"Ready weapon. Radar indicates two large bogeys headed westbound at eight yards per second. Possible feline connection; data unclear. Projected path crosses five yards due north of current position. Hold ground."

"James, they're getting closer," she whispered with urgency. She had seen the alpha raise its head and sniff the air before nearly doubling the pace toward them while James had been talking.

"Cynthia, hold ground. Ready weapon. Large bogeys closing. ETA: forty seconds."

"Alpha closing. ETA: ten seconds," she replied, the whisper somewhat breathy and very nervous. She'd never seen a Hellhound up close, much less fought one. She wasn't afraid of them, as the suit would protect her from most injuries, but she'd not been in a one-on-four combat situation, ever. Usually it was James with his reflexes and his genius gene that fought the monsters off, leaving her with the scraps or weaklings to kill.

"Bogeys closing. Confirmed feline relation. ETA: twenty seconds."

"Alpha has entered the perimeter. Weapon ready. Kill may be necessary."

"Kill on contact. Neutralization impossible."

She swallowed thickly. He was right, of course: trying to neutralize and tame a Hellhound was like trying to cut a cantaloupe open to get an apple. It wasn't possible.

"Targets inbound. Blade ready."

"Negative. Discharge rounds from a range. Eliminate targets before they can eliminate you."

She looked toward his figure. He crouched facing off into the western sun, apparently watching for the felines approaching. He didn't even seem bothered by the fact that four vicious Hellhounds were creeping up on him and their position. Then again, nothing ever seemed to scare or faze him. He had always been completely nonplussed by The Parallel, with the exception of when they'd first woken up to find out where they were. He'd freaked out for an hour, then calmed down and been totally calm ever since. Even stealing the suits hadn't bothered his demeanor.

"Targets confirmed. Discharge ready."

She slid what looked to be a very finely-crafted piece of machinery from her left hip into her right hand, something that looked like the hilt of a sword, though where the blade should have resided there was only a maw of black that led into the device. She twisted the knob that covered the entire end of the handle until a click was heard and the hilt vibrated gently in her hand.

"Charge set to four."

"Negative. Optimize charge setting at two, narrow shot. Aim between both eyes, one shot each."

"James, targets will fail to be eliminated at charge two."

"One shot to the cranium per dog will suffice. No need to turn them into Swiss cheese," he replied tubriskly. "Felines inbound. ETA: five seconds."

She rolled her thumb on the hilt and lowered the charge level. The hilt only hit a maximum charge of nineteen with the equivalent power of two hydrogen bombs. Hellhounds had notoriously high stamina and damage resistance, so a charge of two which could kill an ordinary human seemed unlikely to do much to the dogs.

She squeezed her palm and loosed a single neon-blue bolt into the Alpha. The charge made a direct hit and brains scattered outward like shotgun bullets. The dog dropped dead before its six legs stopped moving.

This of course alerted the other three canines to her presence, and they immediately began sprinting toward her. She gulped, sending her second shot through the next dog's head. Blood rained like bullets as it, too, hit the dirt before its legs stopped running. The other two dogs sprinted at full-bolt toward her location.

A steady hand eliminated a third target. The fourth began dodging left and right, making lock-on impossible. They were excellent at strategizing on the fly and it seemed this one had figured out how to dodge the shots.

"James, target movement is too rapid. I can't lock on."

"Hold for three seconds," he replied, speaking just above a whisper for once.

She looked between him and the dog.

_One._

The dog's feet pounded the ground, six in a perfect unified round, racing left and right even as she tried to scope it down.

_Two._

She could see it huffing, could hear the growling as it drew so close to her, ready to tear her apart-

_Three._

A blur of grey lanced from the left side of her peripheral vision and continued across to the right, catching the dog mid-leap and hurtling them both across the terrain. James hadn't lied; a seven-foot-long caracal, ash-grey and sleek-furred with a three-foot-long tail, had vault-tackled the hound from the air and had set about ripping its head off, tearing straight for the stomach and intestines in search of feast. She turned her head away from it to see the other scrounging off the remains of the three she'd killed.

A small buffer of air struck her left and she turned, hilt in hand, the lucid sword blade rippling outward with energy. James had knelt beside her, though, and she stowed the blade, her heart beating from the stress and panic.

"We can tame them," he voiced. "They haven't become corrupted by the radiation. It seems that this particular breed of caracal has adapted to the atmosphere. Smart cats," he said thoughtfully, an air of appreciation and reverence in his whisper. She nodded in agreement.

"They may be easy to tame," Cynthia said hopefully. James looked puzzled.

"Perhaps. I need to approach one to get an understanding."

The caracal to her right had finished scarfing on the dead dog and was snaking slowly back to its partner when it paused. It raised its head and looked right at the duo on top of the rise.

"It sees us," she informed him. James nodded.

"They knew we were here. That's why they came."

Now she was mystified. What would such large plains cats be doing tracking two of Chaos' most wanted persons?

"We led them straight to a food source," James explained. "Because we smell foreign and we are healthy meat, we attract predators from every angle. They can smell our faint scent from about three miles off."

"Even through the armor?"

"Even through the armor."

The caracal to the right had laid down, though its gaze was still focused on their figures. James locked eyes with it and gazed long and hard, kneeling, slowly outstretching his hand toward the animal. It sniffed, raising its chin, as if trying to get a sense of emotion from the human that beckoned to it.

Cynthia then noticed that the other large cat was approaching them openly, caution abandoned. It waltzed leisurely toward their location and looked as though it had not a care in the world. Its eyes, however, seemed to be focused on James as it approached.

He lowered his hand and looked around slowly, realizing with mild surprise that the cat was advancing on him so calmly. He stayed, knelt on the ground, arm retracted, eyes focused on the new target.

Cynthia resisted the urge to grab for her weapon. James hadn't indicated any presence of danger in the animals and continued to just look the cat in the eyes as it lessened the distance from three yards to three feet.

It stopped, nose almost pressed to his forehead. He didn't even blink, didn't falter in demeanor under the stare of the animal. It sniffed at him, very softly, very quietly, before licking his forehead with a rough tongue. Gravelly gurgling echoed from within the creature's body, and she thought for a moment that the creature was going to attack her partner. James merely chuckled at her visible stiffness and concern.

"The cat is _purring, _Cynthia. It trusts me."

Sure enough, much like the cats back home on their Earth, the cat began rubbing against his body rather sensually, looping its tail around his shoulders and neck somewhat protectively.

"This is a rare breed, isn't it?"

He nodded, scratching the feline behind the ears. The purring only grew louder.

"Caracals don't normally have this level of intelligence and trust in human companionship. This is a very rare breed of cat, indeed."

He stood up, resting his hand gently on the feline's crown, gently pulling his fingers on the scalp. The massage insighted more purring and even coaxed the other cat to join its partner in the benevolence.

"That was easier than expected," he commented. Cynthia nodded, gently scratching the cat's ribs. She too got to her feet and the more hesitant feline sniffed her hand before pushing its nose into her palm. She turned and smiled grimly, her lips a thin, chapped line, having not displayed a true smile in more than two years. The cat's grey-green eyes looking up at her and showed her their shared sentiments.

"Cynthia, nightfall is in thirty-six minutes. We need to forge a shelter or find a hole somewhere."

She looked around and saw his retreating form some four hundred yards away, the grey caracal still by his side, tail swishing idly back and forth. _How did he get so far away so fast? _She hopped her way down the rocky crag and reached the bottom without so much as a nick or a ding on her armor, not that it would scuff so easily anyways.

"My radar indicates there's a small, sheltered cave about a mile north of here, up by that plateau ahead."

She looked where he'd described, his retreating form growing ever-the-smaller. A very large mesa stood, tall and strong, jutting from the earth like a stage for titans. More reddish-brown clay-like dirt built the platform, a small ring of limestone running around its beltline. It looked to be very large and capable of providing a great deal of shelter, were the inside somewhat hollowed out. But that would be a fantasy come true; she hadn't even been inside a house in almost three years, let alone a proper, civilized shelter.

Fur grazed her hanging left hand. She scratched at the softness and purring ensued. James' figure had grown even farther from her, the distance slowly increasing. He moved so fast without even so much as a whisper of noise from his person. _So lithe and agile, just like the cat beside him._

He disappeared from her line of sight, apparently into a fissure of sorts at the base of the table. With what energy she could pump into her legs, she set off toward the maw at a dead run, the cat galloping beside her, easily matching her pace. She could see every muscle of the cat humming and sliding and contracting and rippling as it ran, crossing the stained dirt with little effort and exertion. She, however, grew tired of running, even though she was in admirable physical condition; the filters in the helmet's visor could only clean the radiation from the air so quickly and hadn't been adapted for large intake volume. They were meant to protect and supercharge during heated combat, not to aid in physical exertion like running or jumping.

Still, she made it to the fissure only slightly out of breath, the cat landing in perfect stride beside her, unperturbed by the brief distance. It licked its nose and blinked at her, head tilted just slightly to the right, watching her carefully as she slowed her beating heart, one hand resting against a large boulder at the entrance to the fissure's maw.

A sapphire-blue flash temporarily blinded her green eyes from somewhere within the fissure, past the point where it closed overhead into a cave. Roars and shrieks met her ears and she gulped. The caracal's tufted ears flattened backwards against its head, tail lowered toward the ground, body slinking along the right-hand wall of rock, sensing imminent danger and enemy traces ahead. Cindy pulled out the hilt, this time engaging a chartreuse blade that rippled and glowed, much like a piece of stained glass held up to a light. _James._

She sprinted into the cave, caution abandoned. All she had to guide her into the blackness around a right-hand corner was the light from her sword, the blade dimly illuminating the path before and behind her as her eyes struggled to adjust to the dark. Sounds of an altercation met her ears, and she watched as a blade, an exact twin of hers cast in sapphire blue, lit up the cave with sparks and light as it hacked through some unseen foe. In the brief flash, she could tell it was a large creature that resembled a bear. However, the extra arms it possessed persuaded her mind to think otherwise of it, and she lunged where she'd last seen it, blade forward, arm slightly bent and braced for impact.

She couldn't see as she sailed through the air, propelled only by the force of her own legs as she lunged, but her body passed cleanly between James and the animal as they separated for a brief moment before resuming their struggle.

"Cynthia, stay low. This thing can kill you with its trashbin-lid-sized hands. I've got it," he soothed, ripping a brutal backhanded uppercut into the animal, the blade ripping from its right hip up and out through its left shoulder. It roared and made a blind swing, and even in the semidark, her eyes were adjusting and could see that it was heavily wounded and quickly dying. She watched as the creature attempted to attack yet again, and when it left its neck open, she gasped as its head blew clean off its shoulders, the blade arcing a harsh, powerful swing through tendons and tissue and bone. The bear-monster fell dead to the floor, its cranium rolling across the cave into a corner. She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding as she slowly stood up, the blade retracting as she pushed off the wall she'd landed near.

James was panting just slightly, but still stood firmly on his feet, blade glowing lethally in the semidark. She watched him crack his neck and retract the blade, the latter of which darkened the cave considerably so that the only light source to be seen was the entrance. A low growl directed her attention toward the opposite corner of the cave.

"The caracal," he whispered, his voice sounding concerned. It was the first time she'd heard him lace any sort of emotion into his voice that wasn't his usual authoritative dialect in perhaps a year or so. He'd become more grim and emotionally rigid than she had; nothing had managed to get him to crack that shell, not until that moment.

"What happened?"

"She tried to lunge at the Kumondo to clear the cave before I'd entered it. One of those massive hands caught her and pitched her somewhere. I'm going to assume it was she or your companion who growled and that they're united in the dark somewhere."

Something metallic hit the floor and then glowed with a blood-colored light. It looked to be a glass tube, about four inches across and sixteen inches long. Off across the cave, the light provided sight for one cat sprawled on the ground with labored breathing, the other sitting upright beside it, looking at James with mild uncertainty and anger.

"Shh, it's okay," he soothed, ignoring the upright cat. Cynthia drew closer, watching silently as he ran one hand gently down the side of the animal. He paused over its ribcage, just behind its forearm, and depressed very slightly, something which incited a growl from deep within the wounded animal.

"Seems to be a couple of broken ribs, perhaps some internal bleeding. Do me a favor and cut some of the meat from the breast of that Kumondo, will you Cynthia?"

She turned and heaved the bear-creature onto its back, careful not to lay it across the glowing rod. With one light swish and a hum from the hilt of her power sword, the meat was lanced cleanly from the bear's ribs, the meat warm to the touch. Even through her thick, black gloves, she could feel the warm weight of the meat, the blood that dripped from within and landed in a small pool in her palm.

She retracted the sword and moved delicately toward the wounded cat, holding the meat out before her. It sniffed, hesitant to the foreign substance, before grasping at the slab with its sharp canines and gnawing ravenously at the meat. Immediately, its shallow breathing became deeper and more full; larger gulps of air filling the cat's lungs as its body rapidly set about repairing itself, determined to undo the damage it had been caused.

James hadn't moved, other than to run his gloved hands gently over the cat's body, soothing it gently as it ate the meat it'd been offered. He almost looked like a father to the animal, even for as little as he'd known it. Cynthia didn't know what to make of it, other than that the man had to have been as starved for companionship as she was. Even though they had each other, nothing could replace the other three.

_Carlton._

_Sheen._

_Liberty._

Carlton had been the first to go. The memory was so strong in Cynthia's brain, it was as though he'd been taken just moments before. The group of five had managed to break straight into the center of the Chaos Spire, the citadel in the center of the megacity. They'd somehow managed to stay under the radar and out of The One's clutches until they found the armor. Cynthia and James had been told to wear the armor, for they were the ones who were most apt and able to derive a solution to get back home and thus needed the most protection and advantage possible. The other three had gotten bracelets, one for the right hand which offered a weapon, one for the left which offered a full-body power-up. Nobody had even gotten to see Carlton's weapon or power-up. He'd been tranquilized and captured as they fled the base, and even though Sheen had tried to recover his large, semi-allergenic friend, he'd failed and been forced to flee or be destroyed. There had been rumor floating around Chaos that he'd become a test subject, a living science experiment, assuming he was even still alive after what The One would put him through.

Then it was Liberty and Sheen together. The group of four had come across a plain that harbored three massive Wurms under its surface. Radiation fallout had mutated common earthworm species into supermassive Wurm creatures, eighty-foot-long monsters that tunneled through the earth and ate anything their four-thousand-plus teeth could dig themselves into, their black, armored bodies flexing and coiling like giant, horrific snakes. James had been fighting one, slicing layer apart from layer while dodging its lethal, poison-tipped tail. Cynthia had been hacking and cutting through yet another, leaving the last one for the happy couple. Cynthia's dark-skinned friend Liberty had been eaten when her Hispanic boyfriend Sheen failed to double-back on his tracks and block a rogue dive from the Wurm, and its gnashing teeth had plowed downward and snapped Liberty up like she'd been a chocolate-colored snack. Sheen had blasted the Wurm to Hell and back, and when it refused to relinquish the love of his life, he'd jumped into its mouth and out of sight. The Wurm dove away into the ground and tunneled away from the fight, never seen nor heard from again. Cynthia hadn't even gotten a chance to say goodbye to any of them, and she'd cried for a long while after they'd each been taken from her.

But the sadness had turned to pent-up, well-concealed rage. Rage against The One for their situation. They were all but powerless to stop it. All it would take would be for one person to bring the Spire down and leave The One weak and defeated. She believed in James. He could do it. He had the strength and the intelligence.

"Rest, poor creature, and regain your strength," he sighed somewhat pitifully. The cat closed its eyes as its companion laid down beside it. Immediately James was on his feet, brandishing his sword, the blade glowing to a blinding white before separating itself in two, twin identical blades in each hand.

"Sleep, Cynthia. Nightfall is in eight minutes. I'll keep first watch."

"James, you had to fight that...that...that _thing. _You need the rest more than I do, and certainly sooner."

He moved quietly toward the entrance to the cave. "No, Cynthia. Three years of this madness has taught me very well how to survive with minimal sleep. It is you who needs to maintain your strength."

"Are you saying I'm not suited for this climate?"

"Neither of us are, but your strength doesn't stay with you when you forsake sleep."

"Just as yours shall fast leave you."

"Rest, Cynthia. Your mind is tired as your body and the things you say fail to match the fatigue I read from you."

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"I am telling you to rest."

She sighed, static thrumming through the line. "Well, at least if you want me to rest...stay by me."

"I'll not move from my perch unless need be."

She moved to him, laying one hand on his plated shoulder. "Then I'll stay here beside you. Maybe you've forgotten about our friends and have moved on since, but I haven't. I remember each of their lives as they were taken from us, James. Perhaps to you they all became collateral damage, but I remember a time not all that long ago when you were deeply rooted and connected to your friends. To me. And now you've become cold and silent. Where have you gone?"

He remained silent, the visor tinted black, his face invisible to her eye and thus unreadable. "I've done what I've had to in order to survive," he sighed.

"And in doing so, you've isolated yourself. If you can't accept and rely on some small form of human companionship from the only other human you know in this Parallel, you'll only serve to fall into insanity just as The One did."

She could almost see and feel him stiffen beneath his armor. She could tell just from the mention and reference that he'd become uncomfortable. She only hoped he wouldn't push her away and leave her to fend for herself. She knew she was entirely incapable, just as he was only slightly more capable of autonomous survival than she. After all, she'd been his companion for three long years in the Parallel and had managed to talk him through very difficult periods of time, especially after some of the killing sprees he'd been guilty of. He hadn't taken the losses as hard as she, though she knew he had harbored that resentment and anger and converted it into willpower and energy to vanquish other creatures that dared cross his path.

"How could I ever be like that monster?"

She gently turned him to face her. "If you don't want to be, don't be isolated."

Again, he became unreadable. She waited, patiently hoping for his reply.

Finally, "You can accompany me to my perch if that will make you most comfortable."

She removed her hand as he traipsed out of the fissure. With one swift kick from his right leg, he vaulted to the top of the rock wall and turned on his heel to face her. She stood directly beneath his person, staring up at him on the edge of the wall.

"Can you make it?"

She blinked behind her visor, fully aware that he couldn't read her expression. She didn't know if she had the strength left in her that day to jump some twenty feet straight up to scale a rock wall.

"We'll both find out in a moment, won't we?"

She crouched, compressing her muscles. James knelt at the top of the wall, slightly to her left. With only a half moment of forethought she extended her legs as fast as she could and catapulted herself upward.

Unfortunately, the exertion of jogging and attempting to aid in killing the Kumondo left her with only enough energy for her upper body to successfully land on the rock, her legs dangling like wet spaghetti below her. Her hands scrabbled as she swung her hips around, grasping for anything she could even as her body slid backwards toward the edge. If she couldn't pull herself up, she knew she'd most likely break or damage something, even through the armor.

A strong arm latched onto the back of the armor around her torso and hoisted her in the air, limbs flailing like an airborne turtle. James stood and gently lowered her to her feet, his arm relaxing and letting her land softly beside him.

"You've exerted yourself too much for today."

She could almost see him either smiling or frowning, but which he'd be inclined to do, she wasn't sure. If he were to smile, she'd feel thankful for his help. If he frowned, she'd be bashful and ashamed that she'd lost her had-been karate physique, having quit out during her sophomore year of high school with a double-black-belt to focus more intensely on her studies and intellectual rivalry with the unbested genius of the campus.

After some deep breaths and a handful of shoulder rolls, she stood up straight again, following her companion as he alighted the far edge of the fissure. He holed himself up against a boulder, the dead air sparing him a chill night breeze. She paused, standing next to him, knees weak from exertion. Their armor had been designed to alleviate the need for most bodily functions, including food consumption, food digestion, and hygiene, but it did absolutely nothing for physical fatigue, other than offer a shield against the elements and monsters within.

"Cynthia, if you stand much longer, your knees will give out and you'll hurt yourself."

She shakily dropped to his side, scooting back to rest against the rock. Once she was as comfortable as she could get on a rocky crag with her tight, knotted back resting against cold plate-armor pressed up to a jagged boulder, she let out a sigh of contentment.

"James…I'm so tired…"

"Sleep, Cynthia. I'll keep first watch. Chances are we won't be going too far for too long, at least not until the caracal heals."

She couldn't even manage a nod. Hearing his words in her ear, only staticky whispers of a voice she'd not heard loud and clear in three years time, was enough to shut her eyelids nice and tight and snug, and lull her into a secure, black dreamland.

_(deep in dream...)_

_Fireworks blew off loud and bright in the distance. For them, it was the happiest night of their lives. All five of the high-schoolers had made it to graduation day, and they'd only been free of their scholarly bonds for a mere matter of hours. _

_Night fell warm and clear long about nine that evening. Cindy stood in front of her floor-length mirror hung in her closet, her cell phone laying open on the vanity to her left._

"_Libby, can I really wear this sort of thing?"_

_A staticky breath crossed the line. Even speaker phone sometimes didn't cut it._

"_Cindy, you've only been ravin' 'bout this night all your life, girl!"_

"_But I just don't know if it's too much. Maybe it's too formal."_

"_Cindy, stop the fussin'! Jimmy's gonn' be there. You wanna impress yo' man, don'cha?"_

_The way she'd said 'man' made Cindy laugh; it sounded like 'may-un' and had a light swagger to it that brought a blush to her cheeks._

"_My man…it's so weird to say that."_

"_Well, that's how I felt 'bout Sheen when he an' I first got together, but now we're livin' it up, girl! You gotta show him yo' stuff! Show that big-brained genius what'chur workin' with! Show him what he's got and make him go afta it before he misses it!"_

_Cindy laughed heartily in her room, twirling the dress around her knees. It hugged her figure tightly and only made it a little hard to breathe, but the amount of cleavage she was showing made up for her air supply. Black, suave, suede-like material that had a large V down the front and wrapped thin, lace-embellished straps over her shoulders and down her back, where the dress finally closed back up somewhere between her middle back and the swell of her butt. It had little layers hanging daintily around her knees and even had two black trails of silk curling their way downward from her waist. She looked good, damn good, and she knew it. She knew she'd be one of the most irresistible girls at the party, but it was all about her and Jimmy. _

"_Libby, I don't know! I've never showed this much of myself to anyone before, not even Neutron! What if he doesn't like it? What if he thinks it's too weird? What if he doesn't want me to be his date tonight? What if-"_

"_Cindy! Think about it! Is he a guy?"_

"_Yes…"_

"_Then he'll like it. Does he have somethin' you don't?"_

"_You mean the brain of a genius?"_

"_No, not like that. Y'know, the outdoor plumbin'! The faucet! His-"_

"_Jesus, Libby, YES, I'm sure he does!" Cindy cried, her face turning red. She heard laughter on the other end._

"_Then he won't think it's weird. An' remember, he likes you. Bad. An' you've been datin' for the past, what, six months?"_

"_Seven months and three weeks…"_

"_Trust me, girl, you'll be FINE! Hell, you already fine!"_

_More blushing. "Thanks, Libby. I guess I owe you a bit for this pick-me-up, don't I?"_

"_Don' even worry 'bout it, girl. Ev'ryone has their nervous point."_

"_Alright, well, I'm gonna let you go get ready. I'm sure Jimmy's gonna-"_

Ding Dong…

"_Shit!" She clapped a hand to her mouth. "He's here. Libby, I've gotta go, I've gotta GO!"_

"_Make it good, girl! I'll see you at my house soon!"_

_The line went dead. Cindy took a deep breath, steadying herself in her strappy four-inch heels. Gooseflesh broke out on her arms and she blinked at herself in the mirror, admiring her subtle, but effective, make-up work. The hint of a shadow across her upper eyelids, the dark curl of her eyelashes, the life in her chartreuse eyes, it all made her look…_sexy.

_She gulped and shut the closet door, grabbing her purse. Her phone snapped shut as she tossed it into the small shoulder-strapped bag; it was slim and small enough to be easily hidden but large enough to not be unnoticeable. _

_She clicked her way down the stairs and onto the tile in the hallway that led off her foyer. Her mother rounded the corner from the kitchen and smiled softly._

"_Looks like my little girl's all grown up, isn't she?"_

_Cindy giggled. "I'm still the same girl, mom. Just a little taller and a little smarter."_

"_And perhaps a little softer on the personality. This is the first boy I've actually seen you take a real liking to."_

_More pink tinged her high cheek bones. "Mom, stop…Jimmy's a nice guy, and I like spending time with him and his dorky friends. He's so good at making me laugh and at showing me a good time."_

_Sasha Vortex smiled again at her daughter, a light film of tears across her eyes. "I'm so proud of you, Cynthia. Now go have a wonderful night with your friends."_

"_I will, mom," she said, hugging her mother gently. She could smell the delicious aroma of chocolate chip cookies woven into her mother's clothing, the morsels baking slowly in the oven. She wondered if they only smelled so good because they were her mother's, or because her light vanilla-scented perfume made them smell better._

"_Well, Jimmy's here. I'd better go meet him," she said, rubbing her mother's back before slowly stepping away from the embrace. Sasha nodded, her black bun of hair bouncing slightly._

"_Take care of yourself, dear."_

_Cindy nodded and smiled at her mother, struggling with not crying. Her mom had been emotional all through the ceremony and it was starting to become contagious. She stepped around the woman, fighting tears, and moved slowly to the door, her hand contacting the cold brass of the handle. Outside, waiting for her, was the guy she'd wanted since he'd moved in ten years before, even before she knew what love was, before she'd even really had any particularly close friends or adventures._

_She twisted the handle and opened the door gently to reveal none other than James Isaac Neutron himself. He had changed his fudge-like hairdo back in the summer before eighth grade for a longer, more shaggy style of cut that only ever hung to his shoulders. A white dress shirt beneath a dark blue suit jacket and black slacks with black loafers comprised of his outfit that evening, a fairly pleasant contrast to his traditional button-up shirts with atom symbols on the left breast pockets over dark blue jeans and grey sneakers. He had been straightening the handkerchief in his left breast pocket rather absently before being interrupted by the opening door. He cocked a half smile at her, his eyes growing wide in surprise. Cindy felt very self-conscious under his scrutiny. _

"_Neutron," she said softly, smiling brightly. He grinned up at her, completely at ease watching her step out onto her porch. _

"_Vortex," he returned just as softly, his tenor a thrum in her ears. _

"_Like what you see?" she asked, the door shutting behind her. _

"_My god, you're…"_

"_Hideous? You don't think it's too much, do you?" she fidgeted, drawing her thighs tighter together, her arms closing up to her body. "Libby said it'd look good on me, but you don't like it."_

"…_a bombshell."_

_She balked, blinking rapidly. Her hands dropped and she looked up at him, away from the concrete step she'd been staring at._

"_I'm a what?"_

"_You're a bombshell, Cindy. You look…stunning."_

_Red flooded her cheeks and she giggled as she nervously clicked down the stairs, sashaying just a bit as she drew closer to him._

"_I do?"_

_He took her hand and kissed the back of it, a light smirk on his face._

"_Yes, you do."_

_She giggled again, her cheeks the color of a ripe apple. _

"_Let's go. I'm sure Libby isn't too thrilled with the idea of waiting on you to start her house party."_

_Cindy laughed. "That girl? I don't even know if she's really ready for this to happen tonight. She didn't sound terribly concerned over the phone."_

"_The way Sheen went on about it earlier, you'd have thought it was like he'd been called Ultralord's best friend."_

_That got both of them laughing. "Wow. Is it really that amazing?"_

"_That's how they're making it sound."_

"_Well, then, we'd better get going, hadn't we?"_

"_As you wish, mademoiselle," he purred. He took her hand and turned slowly to his left. A blanket of warmth twisted through their bodies and left them standing outside Folfax Manor, buried somewhere within the middle of the Ivy Heights. Cindy gasped._

"_How…?"_

"_There are many things I've left undisclosed, Cindy. That was just a bracelet with a power gem. Simply think about your destination, then turn to your left to go there. It won't bend time, though, so don't think you'll be getting a pocket-sized DeLorean any time soon."_

_She laughed. "I want one of those."_

_He snapped the silver band off his wrist and onto hers. It weighed less than a sheet of paper._

"_Titanium, for energy dispersal," he commented. She smiled at him, resisting the urge to rumple his hair._

"_Always the annoying genius type, aren't you?"_

"_I fear you'd be disappointed in me if I weren't," he replied, grinning like a loon. _

"_Well, Libby had better be ready for us," she said, chuckling. "I doubt too many people have showed up for this party of hers."_

_They walked up to the steps, her arm loosely curled around his, not wanting to be overbearing or overly possessive of the young man beside her. She could feel the slight muscle through the jacket as it flexed gently with his stride. All the wrench-work on the late nights of inventing must have been paying off for him._

_A loud, raucous chiming noise sounded deep within the bowels of the house as Jimmy rang the bell. The door immediately opened to a dashing red-haired young man wearing a white collared shirt and black slacks with a leather belt. The man grinned down at the couple on the porch._

"_Hey, Jim."_

"_Hey, Carl. How's football been treating you?"_

_The man was easily six feet tall, and his had-been portly stature had turned into his greatest strength: nobody at any football event had ever managed to tackle him or drag him down, no matter how persistent or heavy. Carl had become athletic, had kicked most of his asthma to the curb, and had grown a great deal stronger and more solid in his high school years, much unlike his mother and father. Even they were astounded at his transformation._

"_It might not be as much fun now that I'm not against high school kids anymore," he jested._

"_But those big, bad college guys will have your work cut out for you. Full ride scholarship, right?"_

_The large man nodded and grinned cheekily. "Well, anyway, come on in. The ballroom's wide open and the party's full swing. Libby's the center of attention right now, and I think she's got Sheen as the disc jockey."_

_The couple stepped across the threshold and Carl shut the door behind them with a loud, dull thud. However, the sound was utterly inaudible over the wall of sheer noise that was coming from within the double-doors under the balcony directly before them. Large, marble staircases curved gently up to the balcony and framed the doors like ivory sentries._

_Carl headed into the throng of people moving and bouncing and shaking within the room ahead. Jimmy shook his head._

"_I don't know how we'll stay alive in there," he commented dryly. Cindy laughed, linking her hands with his as she faced him._

"_Come on, Neutron. Lighten up. It's a party, not a science convention."_

_She slowly began dragging him backward into the crowd, pulling and pulling until she had him up near the concert stage, at the head of which a dark-skinned young woman stood, snapping her fingers and twirling in circles as she danced to the music the young Hispanic man selected off to her right. Jimmy caught his eye and waved; the wave was returned before the man's eyes widened noticeably in the half-light. Both parties of the couple had a sneaking suspicion that the blonde-haired date had been spotted. _

_The song ended and the woman took to the mic again. "Thanks for that one, Sheen! I think this party's starting to be called a party now, don't you agree?"_

_Cheers erupted. Cindy chose that moment to step onto the stage and casually walked her way up toward center stage._

"_How's everyone doing tonight?"_

_The crowd cheered again, this time with wolf whistles and cat calls. Cindy tapped the woman on the shoulder and she spun, eyes growing wide at the sudden distraction. Her gold, floor-length gown spun and glittered beautifully in the light._

"_I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Cindy called gently, "but it wasn't a party until I walked in!"_

_The crowd laughed and yelled again. Jimmy got onto the stage and snuck his way around to meet up with the Hispanic boy at the computer. Cindy, meanwhile, had embraced her best friend in front of the entire senior class of Retroville High. _

"_Ladies and gentlemen, our valedictorian, Cindy Vortex!"_

_More cheers, albeit with some groans mixed in; nobody wanted to be reminded of high school. Jimmy tapped the man on the shoulder and grinned._

"_Hey, when you finally get some time with Libby after these shenanigans, tell her I'd like our group of five to meet up outside my clubhouse tomorrow at around noon if possible."_

"_You got it, Jimmy. Any requests?"_

"_None for the moment, Sheen. I'm not much of a dancer."_

_Both laughed a bit as the girls carried on upstage. Finally, Cindy joined her date and gave him a gentle peck on the cheek, something to which the crowd let out a loud, collective "aww" and all made kissing faces and noises at. Cindy laughed. Jimmy turned slightly pink. He wasn't too good with public affection._

"_Alright, well, does anyone want to have Cindy or Jimmy make a speech?"_

_The crowd clapped and a dull cheer began to ring. "Jim-my! Jim-my!"_

_Libby looked his way, dress glittering like it'd been made by Rumplestiltskin. "Well, Jimmy?"_

_He sighed. "How can I resist?" he called. The crowd laughed as he took to the mic. Cindy stayed on his arm per his choice and accompanied him, feeling very self-conscious and very nervous in front of her entire graduating class with the guy who put butterflies into her heart by her side._

"_Well, I'm sure everyone can agree when I say it's been a long time coming. The past twelve or thirteen years of our lives have been nothing but school and tests and not a whole ton of fun has come of it all."_

_Nodding ensued. "But, hey! We made it out alive, right?"_

"_What about Betty?" someone cried._

_The room fell into an awkward silence. Jimmy and Cindy glanced at each other somewhat uncomfortably._

"_Well…that was unforeseen, as it happens…she was just as good a student as any of us, and was a very talented actress-to-be. But…due to an unfortunate case of circumstance, she couldn't be with us on this wonderful day."_

_Some people had let themselves fall to tears. Jimmy remained composed. Cindy could feel heartbreak welling up. It hadn't been some unfortunate case of circumstance. She'd been found murdered in cold-blood, multiple stab wounds covering her lifeless corpse, her entrails ripped to pieces and gutted from her body like an Egyptian sacrifice to the gods. And to top it all off, she'd been discovered three days after her alleged death in an alleyway at the bottom of a dumpster, her clothing, hair, and body covered in remains of the killer's semen. He'd been apprehended and was serving four consecutive life sentences in prison for a string of similar crimes across the country, but nothing could ever replace the spark of life Betty had brought around. Hell, Cindy had even started to like the girl a bit once they'd sorted out their feelings for Jimmy and realized that Betty wasn't interested in him. They shared many common interests and both seemed to have similar upbringing, but only one of the two had made it to graduation day alive._

"_Hey, guys, we aren't here to mourn Betty. She lives on with us! She graduated with us! I was there with you guys; I saw the diploma pass into the hands of her mother and father, given straight to her little sister. Don't be upset that she's gone, be thankful for the time she was able to share with us. Besides, honestly, do you think she'd want us moping about her death?"_

_He spun and grabbed a glass of champagne he knew Libby would be holding out to him._

"_So, if there need be any reason to celebrate tonight, as if graduation and survival of the most boring years of our lives wasn't enough…" he held the glass high in the air, looking around the crowd with a large, bold grin, "…let's celebrate with our friend Betty Quinlan on the night we've become free of our scholarly chains. Let's celebrate, if not for ourselves and our own accomplishments, then for her!"_

_He downed the entire glass in one swallow while cheers and tears erupted throughout the crowd. The mood had been reignited and with a finger pointed to Sheen, the music restarted and everyone set about dancing again. Jimmy and Cindy waved as they backed off the stage, headed for the dance floor. On the way, Jimmy ran into Carl and traded high-fives. _

"_Tomorrow, the clubhouse, noontime?"_

"_Sure thing, Jim. See you there!"_

_Cindy tugged on his arm as they got lost in the crowd and began to move and sway with the beat._

"_What was that about, Neutron?" she asked suspiciously._

"_Well, Vortex, I trust you'll have to be there tomorrow around noon to find out, won't you?"_

_She laughed, punching him lightly on the shoulder as she bobbed and swayed in the midst of all the bodies. "Count on it, Jimmy."_

_He pecked her gently on the lips, and they danced the night away._

* * *

**_I will hope beyond all hope that this document upload manager saved and recognized every single bit of effort it took me to push this first chapter out of my mind. It was a lot of work to start this fic, and it doesn't seem to be getting any easier on me. Sometimes I get bouts of inspiration. Not often. It'll be a bit more structured than some of my other works, but it should still ultimately resemble a giant, tangled knot ball when I finish. I love you all, my gentle snowflakes, and I bid you a wonderful day. Be sure to review, and notify me if you want to be a beta for this work; I'm desperately in need of at least one person who can sift through my work and tell me where I've caused discrepancy, awkwardness, or error. Thank you all so much, and I'll see you when I post Chapter 2: Progressive Extension Technology. ~Kyttin_**


	2. Progressive Extension Technology

**_A/N: It's been a while. That goes to show where my inspiration is. Currently, Chapter 4 is mostly done and in beta-stage right now; the only thing unwritten is the memory at the end. Sorry if it gets confusing._**

**_Word Count: 7'568 (MS Word 2010, FFnet)_**

**_This thing is retarded and deleted everything I had written beforehand because it put a stupid line break where it didn't belong and I couldn't get rid of it. FanFiction, PLEASE, update your Document Manager!_**

**_No disclaimer cuz I'm that awesome. Review Count: 3. On to Chapter 2 of The City._**

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 2: Progressive Extension Technology

Red light from an aged sun beat insistently against shut eyelids, waking Cynthia easily and crudely. She stretched as silently as possible without standing before she took in her surroundings. She had easily slept twelve hours away. James had been right: she'd been deeply fatigued.

Which begged the question of where he'd gone. She looked around frantically, even leapt up to the top of the boulder (to which her back and legs protested rather viciously), but had no visual on his person. Shaky with apprehension, she drew her blade, letting the poisonous green saber extend a full three feet outward before dropping off the boulder to the top of the crag below.

The air was still. Dead. From the gentle blipping in her helmet, she could tell the radiation levels had definitely increased from where they'd been at that time the previous morning. With the amount of contamination present in the air, it was almost certain she'd die within moments upon removing her helmet. Her armor, however, would do nothing to define life or death against just the radiation.

She slid down the wall of the fissure and landed softly at the bottom, keeping her actions as quiet as possible. Silent, well-placed steps carried her into the fissure and toward the maw of the cave. The red light still glowed gently from within, though this only served to lower her guard by an infinitesimal amount.

She realized as she stepped in that she needn't have worried, however, as James knelt over the wounded cat, his only movement the fluctuations in his chest as he breathed. He neither acknowledged nor disregarded her presence as she retracted and stowed her blade, nor as she knelt beside him.

"You left your perch."

"I was concerned for the cats."

"But not for me?"

"You're capable of taking care of yourself."

"James, I slept for twelve hours."

"Thirteen hours, thirty-six minutes."

"Why didn't you stay with me?"

"It was light out and I knew you'd awaken soon."

"And what if I hadn't? What if I'd been devoured or killed?"

"You're stronger than that."

She blinked at him, their faces hidden behind their respective visors. "James, I could very easily die out here."

He was silent. She could almost imagine the words 'collateral damage' cycling through his mind.

"Why did you leave me unprotected? You could have roused me before you left. Are you tired of having me around as a burden of some sort?"

"You are capable of holding your own."

"James, my death is a very real possibility out here, just as yours is. The James I used to know…the _Jimmy _I used to know…he wouldn't have jeopardized my safety under any circumstance."

She could almost see him stiffen, the gears in his head whirring into overdrive. She changed tact before he could snap.

"How's the healing?"

He was silent for a moment, hand resting gently on the cat's chest.

"She'll be ready to go tomorrow. Just some minor bruising and maybe a cracked rib. I'm not a doctor nor a vet, though, so I can't give a complete diagnosis."

He stood rather suddenly and drew his blade, splitting it again into two, one for each hand. The shimmering blue essence carried in the weapons suited him; he looked strong and graceful, even without any sleep the previous night.

"James, you should rest. You were up all night."

"Sitting was enough for me. I watched a great many threats pass by, but none dared explore the red light within the cave. A dead Kumondo produces a scent untraceable by humans but like a pungent odor to other creatures and hastens them to be wary and keep a wide berth, lest they too get caught in death's grasp."

He sounded so poetic, even for a genius. But his tone was dead. Granted, it was only ever a whisper between them at all times, but he sounded so dead from his former self. The only glory about his figure was what he wore: the armor.

The helmets had a sort of crown-like appearance, even though they were full-face and silvery in color; his had a blue tinge where hers was more emerald. Fitting colors, the perfect links to their own eye colors, and shocking given they'd not ever been to the Parallel before. The helmet's full-faced visor tucked into what Cynthia could guess was reminiscent of helmets traditionally worn by humans who had at one time ridden extremely high-velocity motorcycles designed for aerodynamics and speed. The difference was in the lobes: his helmet had a single horn-like projection stemming from the upper back of his head, two smaller but similarly-shaped projections branching from its base. Her own had two horns on the upper front of her helmet that spanned to the back in the shape of a V. The helmet closed off at the neck with a rubbery insulation that prevented any radiation from infiltrating the purified interior. Hair couldn't even escape the confines of the shell, as it was pressure-sealed; the first few weeks had brought much itching to their scalps as their hair adjusted to the space, but three years had made no difference to either of them and they'd grown to ignore the bothersome twinge.

Their arms both had the same sort of design: the armor was split into an outer main shell and an inner sub shell. The outer shell only covered the outsides of their biceps and their forearms and was made of the indestructible material shaped like inverted teardrops, while the insides had a light, flexible type of fibrous cloth that both clung to their skin and offered heat and cold resistance. Analysis had revealed that the cloth was also made of synthetic material the likes of which could not be obtained on their home planet, for it was as unbreakable as it was comfortable.

Their torsos had front and back plates, both made of the indestructible material with more cloth lining. Taking on the appearance of a Picasso-style artwork with some symmetry and dynamics, the suits each had oval-shaped breast plates, one per side, which led into descending layers of curved teardrops, the pointed tips rounded off just slightly and joined down the center of their bodies. The back plate had three more square-shaped pieces across the shoulders with the same droplet-pattern for the lower back, and both sets of armor reached evenly past their hips. They shimmered in any light and were only ever invisible in the blackest of rooms.

Their legs had short plates to cover their upper and middle thighs on the fronts and backs, but their calves had a different construction style: where most of the individual segments were rounded or softened for comfort, the calves were built like iron-hard shin-guards. Each calf piece had two parts of the armor molded together at ninety-degree angles, giving off a very harsh edge for the fronts of their legs. Each calf piece ran from just above the ankle up to well past the knee, at which point they tapered into strong, sharp spikes. Cynthia recalled watching James drive one of the deadly points into an enemy at close range when it had nearly overpowered him. She supposed it was meant to be offensive and defensive together.

Their hands only wore black gloves of a more leathery quality. Their feet had some form of plated, universally-sized boots that were just as lethal-looking as the shin-guards, though with spikes pointing off from the fronts of their feet rather than the tops. Add to that the belt that held their signature weapons, and the suits were complete.

He turned and stole away from the cave, exiting through the fissure Cynthia had entered just moments before. She very nearly called out to him, but held her silence resolutely as he departed, armor glinting in the red light. The healthy caracal nudged her hand, having finally awoken and arisen, and she scratched the back of its head absently, the tufts of its ears brushing her hand gently as she sat against the cave wall and listened to its gentle, steady purring.

The red light bored a hole into her eyes, into her mind, quietly urging her to get lost in her thoughts, to let her anguish flow like an undammed river, to remember and remove three years of damage. She hadn't the faintest bit of control as thought and reason evaded her. She hadn't cried in forever, hadn't smiled or laughed since before she'd gotten there. Her personality had withered, and now she barely knew any emotion outside solitude and rage. Sadness was a burden. Happiness was a curse.

Even her relationship with James had changed. She remembered how they used to fight, and often. How petty it had always been. But he'd been her friend through everything. He'd even been the person she was most intimate with through everything, her best secret-keeper, her most loyal companion, even when he felt she should be going to her female friends for the advice she hoped he'd give. He knew, or at least had known at one point in time, who she really was, more so than any of her closest friends or even her parents.

James had always been her rock. If the world had turned against her or life looked bleak and hopeless, he'd been there. She still recalled the only time she'd ever cried in front of him back when they were fourteen and her parents were filing for divorce. The shouting, the anxiety, the pressure of it all finally got to her one evening that October and she'd fled the house for the sanctuary of his underground lab. He'd sat and listened patiently, waiting for her to tell her tale at her pace, never pressing her for details. He'd even set his logic and intelligence aside to give her heartfelt advice, calming her enough to permit her to return home. He'd given her a comforting hug and a gentle kiss on the cheek before she'd left, saying everything would work out for the best in the end.

Her heart ached a bit for those days. She missed the big-brained egotistical neighbor she'd teased and pranked all through their childhoods and teen years. She even missed how he'd toned himself down and set his genius aside to have fun in high school, scheduling parties and field trips and even some rather heinous but laughable experiments for the entire campus to participate in. She'd still competed with his intellect, and both knew it was futile, but he'd played along just the same to make her happy. She knew he'd settled for slightly sub-par grades on projects and essays just for the sake of giving her the glory of trouncing him every so often, though his grades never bobbled nor wavered from their straight-A rank as the highest on campus. He was always her superior in everything, something she loved and loathed about him.

Which was what devastated her so much about their situation. He'd turned into an autonomous survival machine, a robot with a very intelligent mind to control it bent only on getting out alive, if not unscathed. He'd become so cold she often got chills near him, for she never saw his sparkling blue eyes or the clean, shaggy hair he had that she loved to play with and run her fingers through on occasion. She couldn't ever read his face or his body English because they had become contorted and foreign to adapt to their location, total survival mode engaged. And what scared her most wasn't that he'd become silent and unreadable. It wasn't even that he could calculate every strike a creature could and would throw at him before engaging in a battle with it. No, the sinister feeling his actions gave her was because she could never in her wildest dreams predict what course of action he would follow next. She loved spontaneity and believed it was healthy to just sometimes go on a whim rather than with a set plan, but utter chaotic unpredictability scared the hell out of her.

The caracal licked her hand, grounding her back in the harsh reality she'd become trapped in. The cat laid at her feet, still purring calmly, nose pressed against the back of her hand. She let her mouth form a grim line, all she could muster and the closest thing she could relate to a smile in the one simple gesture. At least the cat was happy. She'd be beyond lucky to make it home alive to her Earth, but the cat had been living on the godforsaken parallel planet for all of its life and had grown accustomed to it. The cat was happy with nothing more than simple companionship, something Cynthia couldn't even say she had anymore from the only other human she knew on the planet.

Still, even as she curled against the wall of the cave, she knew they both needed each other far more than they'd care to willingly admit aloud. If they were to ever escape alive, and have any hope of getting home ever again, they needed each other. Not just because they held hope for the relationship they'd forsaken to survive, but because his lack of emotional rationality could get him killed on his own, and her lack of cold-read and intense foresight would leave her dead in a heartbeat. They were two halves to a perfect whole, and if one of them went missing, the other would fail miserably. Certain death awaited the one who went alone. She only hoped-

"_Shit_," James cursed over the link.

Cynthia was stunned out of her musings. James had just spoken aloud, using his tenor for the first time in years. Not only that, but he had cursed in doing so, which could only mean that there was a fast-approaching peril or imminent danger.

Not even a half-second had passed in which this information met Cynthia's ears before she was struck by the sound of a loud swelling roar that was immediately followed by a deafening explosion that rocked the cave. Spider-web cracks blossomed brilliantly from the upper corners of the rock, small stones and dust falling from the uneven ceiling and striking her helmet annoyingly. Amid the shaking cave and the loud, uncomfortable grating tremors that came with it, she heard a sort of metallic shriek from outside. Something told her that James was either in trouble or was headed for it.

She stood, drawing her blade automatically, the caracal at her feet already out the maw of the cave. She hastily followed it, dodging falling rocks and loose stone underfoot. Finally, at the mouth of the fissure, she stopped to see what looked like a large, black flying saucer with a dome on the top and bottom sides. Whatever it was, she'd never seen nor heard of the likes of it and concluded very easily that it had caused the explosion she'd heard.

But just as she was thinking the metallic spaceship was reminiscent of an alien spacecraft, she watched the disc unfurl around the ball in the center, showing five massive legs shaped like the heads of claw hammers, the strikers pointed toward the ground. The thing dropped from the sky and slammed into the ground, creating a mild earthquake that nearly pitched her from her feet.

The metallic screech came again and Cynthia read it as a battle cry. She moved to charge forward, but at the last second noted something incoming from her upper right frame of vision. She dodged left onto her back, blade making a wild arc and striking something somewhat solid, a loud pulse echoing in the fissure. She looked around the blade to see James's own in his hand, blocking her sword mere inches from his helmet.

"Stay down," he commanded, tenor loud and clear. "This thing will kill you if you miscalculate even once."

And with that, he flicked her blade aside like a spaghetti noodle and vaulted himself at the creature, swords out and ready. He looked like a silvery-blue phoenix, swords blazing and glowing with a surreal aura. And as she stood, watching him, feeling woozy with worry, she gasped as he grunted over the link and vehemently slashed his swords at high power, the arcs increasing his blades' lengths from three feet long to thirteen feet long as he gouged a large X into the creature's immediate foreleg. The hammer came up and nearly flattened him as it slammed into the ground, missing him by a last-minute dodge roll and a mere matter of inches.

Cynthia jumped to the look-out boulder, perching like a cat as the battle ensued. James spent much time ducking and dodging, rolling and jumping like a rubber ball in a tiny box. He maintained such grace and poise while the creature, which easily stood some twenty-five feet tall and was swinging five supermassive dead-weights around as easily as though it were throwing baseballs, attempted to crush him in any way possible, even using its own body to flatten the warrior into the red earth. It looked like an even match of wits and mental capacity, but she knew that the only reason James was dancing around it like a hungry fly around food resting on a countertop was because he was searching for a weakness, an opening, a place and a chance to attack the beast. Nothing seemed to give, though, for he had been darting around, evidently trying to confuse the creature into a mistake, for some three straight minutes. Cynthia knew it wasn't much time at all, but it was enough to very certainly begin draining at his supposedly-boundless energy.

Sure enough, she noted that he was beginning to use a cycle to try and isolate a weakness, a cycle he'd used on a number of creatures of all sizes, most being only slightly larger than him at best. However, this cycle took up a much larger surface area, and the giant foe was as fast as its limbs were heavy, like an enormous mutant spider that had metal plates on its legs and a metal case surrounding its body. And as she watched James begin the cycle, she noted that not only was it much larger than he normally implemented, but that it was far slower than it should have been. Even if the creature was several times his size, it should have taken him what she quickly calculated to be just over two seconds to reach five specific points around the creature. He'd completed the points in almost three seconds, something which scared her immensely; the beast was wearing him down.

She could hear him panting across the line as his lithe blue metallic figure raced around the beast, luring it closer and closer to the fissure. This caused Cynthia to frown, as he usually fought his enemies on even ground with no distinct advantage on his side. For him to be attempting to get to the fissure, something which would most certainly put him on higher ground overtop the monstrosity, suggested very strongly that he had run out of options and was running out of time before he would be overrun. If James died, it was highly likely she would soon follow.

"James, bring it closer!" she cried frantically. She only got panting and a grunt in response.

The creature did seem to be getting closer to her perch. It hadn't even acknowledged her presence; if it had, it would have immediately set about eradicating the weaker organism over the stronger one. The caracal had hissed and run back into the cave, which led to the conclusion that James was its sole target, and the only one it had identified upon inspection. This could definitely work in their favor if they played their cards and fortune right.

"Come on, James, just a bit-"

One hammer-like arm had finally had enough of the antics and swung at the exact coincident spot that James happened to land in, directly in front of the beast. The sidelong uppercut shot slammed into his entire figure and blasted him backwards into the wall of the fissure directly below Cynthia, a distance of some fifty feet. She was nearly thrown from the rock when his impact caused such violent trembling that the boulder shifted, enough to temporarily violate her balance.

"James!"

Shallow, ragged breathing came over the link. She knew he was hurt, and decently, given his brief moment of being airborne. She looked up at the monster with new eyes, eyes like those of a hawk before it dives and snatches its prey, eyes of a predator. Eyes of a killer.

She saw it raise one leg, its other four sprinting straight for his location. She knew it was going to kill its opponent and claim victory. Her legs tensed. James needed her. That above all else stuck in her mind and drove her to act out.

The creature was not twelve feet from them when she leapt into the air, her blade in hand and pointed slightly backwards as she fell through the air. With a cry like a savage, wounded dog, she swung the blade around her spiraling body, the energy cascading from her figure, into the blade and beyond, extending its force and impact trajectory from three feet to twenty feet, and the determined two-hundred-seventy degree arc that followed let off a noise that was a mix between grating metal, cannon fire, and a high-speed turbine as she cut the entire foreleg from its host, the mass and her body falling to the ground.

Her legs tensed the instant she landed, and when the two-ton appendage hit the dirt just behind her, she used the shockwave to ride forward and up, up some thirty feet over the creature, her blade pointed and biting directly towards its core. When she was directly overtop the massive beast and her blade was embedded within it, perpendicular to the ground, she ripped at the eight-foot-long blade and created an immense shockwave of pure particle energy that ripped into the creature and through the air, thirty-five feet of pure chartreuse energy spinning as she rotated her shoulder and slammed her blade backwards into the posterior of the monster, her body planting to the ground.

It was done. She knew before the creature's innards were separated that it was done. She knew even before it had known. She knew long before the creature's body split cleanly in half and crashed heavily to the ground, ten tons of metal, guts, and blood soaking the already-ruined earth. She stayed planted, her left leg stretched slightly beneath her as a fulcrum with her thigh and calf pointed down, the right planted with her knee in front of her face to act as a spring, arms held tightly to her left, clasping the hilt of the humming sword. She retracted the three-foot blade and stood slowly, the spent energy taking its toll on her body and showing very clearly how much it had cost her to save the man's life.

But it had been worth it.

In the dirt, right where the creature split in half and all the way down its middle some forty feet in length was a black scorch mark, a perfectly straight line that ran all the way to the base of James's crater. She panted as her eyes traced the line back to where his body now stood, hunched over, leaning back slightly against the wall, his breathing shallow and distorted over the link. She realized she, too, was panting from the effort, and it took every last drop of her energy and her willpower to walk along the line back to him, where she regarded him gently.

"Where does it hurt, James?"

She was genuinely concerned for his well-being, and if her tone of voice over the link, rough and cracked from neglect, didn't convince him that she was worried about him, then her slaying of the monster that had marked imminent death for him did. She heard him swallow thickly over the line.

"I'm fine," he coughed.

"James, don't…don't bullshit me," she panted. "Come on…let's go inside…to rest."

She looped her left arm under his right armpit and grabbed hold of the back of his hip armor, her right hand automatically rising to grasp hold of the back of his right wrist as it hung over her shoulders. She could feel him trying to push her away.

"James, stop…don't fight me, just…come on."

She led him slowly to the maw of the cave, her every step labored from her exertions. Just those two attacks had left her drained nearly to nothing and she suddenly felt incredibly weak and insignificant compared to the much stronger, much more agile man she was helping into the cave.

She sat him down near the wounded caracal, its mate poised in the corner as though ready to strike. Upon seeing both humans, however, it relaxed visibly, though kept a fair portion of its guard up even as it laid down and righted its ears. Cindy dropped heavily beside the man, slumping against the rock wall. She let out a great swell of spent air and tilted her visor to regard his.

"You…need to rest," she coughed out, still breathing deeply. He shook his head.

"Here," he whispered over the link, his voice back to its former dead, raspy tone as he leaned forward. "Slide the right shoulder plate up and change the number from zero to two."

She slid the plate upward to see a secondary plate beneath it. In clear, block letters read the words OVERDRIVE CONTROL atop a dial with a needle that read zero. Colored regions circled the inside of the dial, the primary color green for three-fourths of the round. Beyond that was about a sixth of yellow, and right back at baseline zero was a small sliver of red, followed by a line of black, just off from the needle's resting point. Below the glass-covered dial was a small thumb spinner with the number zero below it. She teased it to the left and watched the needle rise into the green as the number changed to one, then again to about a fourth along the green as the number hit two. James's breathing slowed and he seemed to be reenergized; his body no longer sagged nor appeared to be heavy for him to carry.

"What does it do?" she asked in a whisper, still trying to control her breathing.

"This is the Overdrive. Because my armor is slightly newer than yours, it has two special technological advancements that yours doesn't. The Overdrive is one of them. Basically, it allows me to circumvent my fatigue and my physical energy limits by drawing on atmospheric particle energy and the presence of unfocused brainwaves and thoughts. The energy gleaned from the neurons combines with the particle energy and recharges my muscles and my thinking, but not without putting strain on my thought-processing. The higher the number, the more power consumed, all the way until number ten."

"What happens at ten?"

"My brain will be completely overridden by the Overdrive and will basically turn me into a savage, robotic beast that will kill everything on sight. At that level of energy overload, I am unable to stop myself and revert to my prior state of mind. By then, the needle will have hit the black line, the forbidden zone, the point-of-no-return. It would take either death or an outside force that could get close enough to downscale the numbers to revert me."

"That's not a good thing, James."

The warning was lost on him. He flicked the panel shut and stood. Cynthia moved to stand beside him, but very nearly lost her balance and instead stayed on the ground.

"I need to recover my weapon and return to my post. You should stay here and get some rest."

"James, wait!"

He had only taken a single step before stopping. She managed to stand and weakly place herself in his direct line of sight and movement. She gazed at him beneath her visor, unable to see his face.

"Why…why did you get hit? Why did you slow down?"

He said nothing for a moment. "I was merely fatigued for a moment after last night's surveillance."

"James, never in our entire time out here have you been struck down during a fight with an unknown creature. You had to have known it would hit you at that exact instant. You were even moving a great deal slower than normal during your cycle. Why?"

She drew closer to him, nearly tapping their visors together. He stayed silent and stock-still.

"You've never failed at a cold read. You've never slowed down, even when you've been exhausted and in pain from your exertions. You've always known how to destroy these things even if you'd never seen them before. Why today? Why was it this time that you didn't just strike it down like I did?

"What happened to you?"

The question hung in the air like a pirate on a noose. She stood, waiting, painfully aware that her knees would give out at any second should he fail to answer.

"Explain the swords, then. What's that about? Why are they only three feet long until we swing them?"

She could almost imagine the old James blinking at her and smiling his cocky smirk. "Progressive Extension Technology," he replied quietly.

"Come again?"

"Progressive Extension Technology. The idea is that the more velocity and energy put into a strike, the longer the blade reaches and the sharper and more concise it becomes. If you were to devote every single quark in your body to the simple act of swinging the sword as far as possible, you'd take all the energy from your life force and create an unbreakable, unstoppable, unvanquishable object that would cut through anything within a one-hundred-foot radius. The more energy you devote, the more life force you dedicate, the longer the blade grows. Thus, it becomes far more deadly than a mere three-foot one-handed sword. It feeds on energy, and like a lightbulb, it will only burn brighter and shine longer as more energy is fed in, up until the point the subject's life force is consumed."

"And what's the life force?"

"It's an unmeasureable energy within every living organism that makes up who it is and how it acts. It's almost like a personality, and some possess more than others. Statistically speaking, it's much stronger in children than any other age group, though life force drained by an object is never lost to the subject unless it is consumed completely in one purge."

"So the only way I'll ever die just by the sword-"

"-is if you dump every last bit of yourself into it. The sword won't bring you a short life-span unless you put your life into it."

She nodded, tapping their helmets gently. "So why, then, didn't you just swing one gouge into the thing and kill it on the spot? Why only a mark on its leg?"

He paused. "Just as the energy put in affects the sword's power, one's focus and concentration gauge how strong and directed the energy is projected. If you swing with your might but don't concentrate on the foe, you'll just leave skin marks. But if you isolate the opponent as the only thing in your way, you direct your energy and attack into the blow you bring about and stand a much stronger chance of inflicting damage or death."

"Then why couldn't you?"

He sighed, static buzzing in her ears. "I was distracted," he confessed.

"By?"

"You."

He turned and departed the cave, skirting her and more possible questions along the way. He'd fed her a vast amount of useful information, but perhaps the one thought that stayed with her for better or worse as she sunk against the wall and started to nod off was the thought that she had distracted him out of his robotic attitude and had brought back at least a small portion of the man she knew. A grim line graced her lips as she fell into sleep's clutches, for the momentary sight of who he'd been before the Parallel was a small, hopeful step back to the way she remembered things being, back to the way things were meant to be.

* * *

"_Hey, Jim, whatcha got us here for?"_

"_It's just a get-together, Carl. The last one we'll ever really be able to have before our college days begin. Plus, I figured everyone would want to celebrate."_

"_Jimmy, after the partying that everyone did last night, I don't think everyone's gonna be so pleased with the idea of being out here at noon under a hot sun."_

_Jimmy sighed. Even his head hurt from the mild alcohol consumption compounded by the pulsing beat of the music. Still, he'd had an amazing time and had danced himself dead on his feet with Cindy by his side the whole time. It had been memorable and fun, to say the least, though the lasting effects included the headache, five-o'clock shadow, messy hair, and rumpled clothing that had been hastily pulled on at hearing the doorbell. _

"_Well, we won't be under the sun for long."_

"_Sheesh, we better not," a voice called. Jimmy smiled._

"_Hey, Sheen. Libby."_

_Libby waved as they strolled around the side of the house. "I hope you boys din't get smashed or nothin' last night."_

"_Nah, just got a headache from the music. One I can probably sleep off if I try hard enough."_

"_Jimmy, since when do you ever sleep anythin' off?"_

_He shrugged. She had a point. _

"_Aw, man, what are we doing here, Jimmy? It's hot out and I wanna go do something fun!"_

"_Hey, easy there Sheen. I've gotta wait for Cindy to get here before I get into the details."_

"_I'm here, Neutron," a groggy, unenthusiastic voice called. To the group it spelled death, save for Jimmy, who thought it was the voice of angels._

_A rather disheveled young blonde woman with sleepy green eyes trudged over to stand beside Carl and complete the semicircle around the genius in the middle. She didn't look much better than Jimmy; her saving grace was that she had a mug of steaming coffee in her hands which she sipped at tentatively._

"_Alright, brainiac, you've got about fifteen minutes before this coffee kicks in and really wakes me up for the day. Whatever you've got planned for us today, it looks like we're all here and awake by some miraculous grace, so you'd better get to the point."_

"_Right. Follow me, then," he urged, jumping down the chute in front of the clubhouse door. Sheen and Libby looked at one another._

"_You'd think he'd a created a different way to get down there, y'know?"_

"_Yeah, but what's the fun in that?" Sheen laughed, jumping down the tube. Libby followed her boyfriend, giggling like a schoolgirl at the rush. Carl and Cindy closed off the group and they all found themselves standing on a large, steel elevator right in the center of the main room._

"_So, you invite us down to your lab to just put us on an elevator platform?" Cindy asked skeptically, sipping from her mug as the mesh platform began to descend._

"_Actually, it's what we do when we get off the platform that matters more."_

_The elevator docked and lights clicked on. Resting before them on six gigantic afterburners was a large rocket, complete with a launch-pad and fuel hose. Jimmy strode from the elevator and stood in a small yellow basket on the side of the red support tower that held the nose and body in place. The basket shot upward and stopped at one of the arms leading into the rocket, an open doorway linking the arm to the tower._

"_Well, come on. One at a time, though."_

_He strode into the rocket's interior as Sheen got into the basket. He nearly fell out when it stopped and skipped his way down the arm. Libby, Carl, and Cindy all took their respective turns getting into and out of the basket, with much more caution and deliberation than Sheen._

_The interior of the rocket was spacious and had five cushy seats all facing straight upward toward the nose cone. Jimmy was standing at a control panel in front of the frontmost chair, and it was then that Cindy realized one interesting fact._

"_Neutron, you're standing sideways."_

"_The gravity stabilizer within the rocket is engaged. I suggest placing one foot on the floor inside the doorway and getting your balance before leaping into the cockpit unprepared."_

_Indeed, as Cindy moved to step straight in, her balance immediately shifted and she very nearly found herself and her coffee on the floor as she moved to step in, saved only by the transitional gravity well in the doorway and the gradual awakening effect of the caffeine on her body and brain._

"_Alright, guys. It's always been the five of us saving the town, just as it's always been me screwing it up," Jimmy reminisced as he turned around to face the other occupants. He smacked a button behind him and the door sealed shut. Everyone began strapping their nine-point harnesses into place and settled comfortably back into their chairs._

"_Which is why, for old times' sakes, I want to go out on one last small 'adventure' of sorts, one where we don't get hurt or risk endangering humanity yet again."_

"_Well, where are we going, Jimmy?"_

_He cleared his throat, a sparkle in his eyes. "Glad you asked, Libby. I won't go into detail because then you'll all yell at me to get to the point, but basically, there's a tesseract about three degrees east and two degrees south of Retroville."_

"_So…what does that mean?" Cindy said dully, sipping her mug._

"_Well, a tesseract is like a wormhole of sorts. It can allow objects and people to traverse distance and time at once, and great amounts of it, with little to no effort. After some calculated tests and a proven hypothesis, I've discovered that this aperture will take us to the far side of what used to be planet Pluto."_

"_Jimmy, not that I don't think that deep space is fascinating," Carl interjected, "but I don't see how going to the far side of Pluto is gonna give us an adventure, especially a safe one."_

_Everyone was nodding in agreement. "Fair enough," Jimmy conceded. "But I sent a probe through. Apparently we're supposed to end up some six hundred years in the future on the far side of Pluto. This tesseract is only open for approximately the next sixty-six hours and will only reopen about thirty thousand years in the future."_

"_Jimmy, that's a helluva time to go without seein' it again. You sure, _positively _sure that nothin' bad can happen this time?"_

_He beamed. "I sent a probe up to do calculations and I received a signal back yesterday at about three in the morning with all the information. Nothing can go wrong this time, I assure you."_

_Everyone chuckled nervously. They knew all too well how one simple promise like that could jinx their chances._

_Jimmy turned around and faced the control panel, reaching for some levers and a knob. "Well, since we aren't running on my energy cells quite yet, I can improvise…"_

"_Atomic thrusters to power."_

_The rocket began humming and vibrating as the flares on the afterburners opened up and began spewing hot air and energy into the base of the launch pad._

"_Turbines to speed."_

_The gravity generator shut down and Jimmy fell calmly into his seat, latching his harness and staring out the window like a man possessed._

"_On my mark. Cindy, you do the honors."_

_She looked down at her armrest to see a green button lit and blinking at her._

"_Three."_

_She looked around, unsure what to do with her mug._

"_Two."_

_Shrugging, she drained the coffee._

"_One."_

_She put the mug under her chair and heard it roll away and shatter as she wiped the extra fluid on the back of her hand._

"_Launch!"_

_She smacked her fist into the button and watched in utter fascination as the ceiling opened wide like a great womb expelling its child as the rocket vaulted off the pad and into the atmosphere._

"_I've already calculated the angle and trajectory according to wind resistance and turbulence. We have about a minute before we hit the tesseract."_

_Somehow the cabin had enough insulation to provide for his voice to be heard, but once the two extra afterburners kicked in, he was drowned out in the sound of the launch. He appeared to be fiddling with a dial and a button._

"_We have one shot to do this. Engaging pulse rockets…"_

_Cindy gulped. Last time he'd said that, they'd almost fallen out of the sky and into the ground when they'd been off to fight the Yolkians. A quick glance around showed her that nobody else liked the idea, either._

"_NOW!"_

_The rocket buckled before doubling their speed and the gravity force crushing their bodies into the chairs. If their headaches from the party hadn't been bothering them that morning, they came back with a vengeance unseen before. And with a sickening crunch, the sound of metal grating metal, and vibration like a thousand pins and needles stabbing and retracting their bodies all at once, they merged into the tesseract._

_They felt weightless. Jimmy whooped from somewhere far away._

"_So far, so good. We should be exiting the hole somewhere shortly up ahead, six hundred years into the future!"_

_The idea of time and space passing them by in the same instance unsettled Cindy greatly. She didn't know why, but she had a nagging suspicion that something wasn't quite the way Jimmy had foretold._

_A light lit up on the dashboard, bathing the inside of the blackened cabin with a soft orange glow. Jimmy clicked some keys on his armrests._

"_We should be jumping out momentarily. Make sure your harnesses are fastened and you sit back firmly in your seat; it could be a tad bumpy."_

_The craft rocked violently as if from sudden impact. If they weren't awake before, they sure as hell were by the time the cabin settled._

_"Jimmy, wha's goin' on?"_

_"I don't know," he replied, voice just a slight bit uneasy. "It seems like we might be exiting the tesseract already."_

_"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!"_

_"Carl, you saying so doesn't make it any better," Cindy yelled back. He quieted to whimpering._

_The hull lurched again, this time far more violently than it had before. Everyone panicked and yelped as the cockpit began shaking, vibrating like a cell phone. Jimmy looked extremely uncomfortable._

_"Alright, Neutron. Tell us what the hell is going on right now."_

_He began keying at his armrests at an unbelievable rate of pace. Within seconds a holographic diagnostics screen appeared before him and he began cycling through menu after menu, eyes searching left and right for any sort of answer to their predicament. Cindy watched in slight fascination as his blue orbs scanned back and forth like a supercomputer or a robot, scrolling left, right, up, and down to read every last bit of information._

_"This wasn't in what I calculated," he gulped. The vibrations grew more intense and a loud grating noise filled the cabin. Several lights blinked on and an uncomfortable whine emanated from the rear of the craft._

_"What are you reading, Jimmy?"_

_"Nothing good."_

"_Damn it, Neutron, what have you done this time?"_

_A deafening noise akin to that of shredding a piece of paper the size of Jupiter screeched loud and clear through their ears, leaving their eardrums ringing and their eyes slightly crossed. What followed next reminded them of being submerged underwater while being squeezed through an impossibly small rubber tube, one that pulsed and contracted and expanded as they passed through it._

_"Jimmy!"_

_"Aw, man, this is great!"_

_"We're gonna die!"_

_"NEUTRON!"_

_"Everyone, grab ahold of something!"_

_The cockpit buckled and crushed inward like a tin can. The windows shattered and a hollow reverberating note nearly cleaved their heads in two as it echoed around the broken craft. The lights blacked out and the vibrating grew more intense; it felt like they were vegetables in a blender just being tossed and chopped any which way. They were all screaming, but over the noise they went unheard. The air around them cycloned and blasted them like a tempest, drowning them in a torrent of oxygen and vacuum. _

_With a treacherously black blanket, the craft seemed to disappear from around them and they felt themselves falling, falling, falling through darkness, their stomachs somewhere in their throats, their hearts racing erratically as they found themselves unable to breathe. Jimmy knew exactly what had happened and why, realizing in one split instant that his calculations had been so badly wrong that he'd jeopardized their existences. Shame and anguish washed over him like a tidal wave as he opened his eyes to see red soil rushing up to meet him, and it was with one final breath he felt the earth cleave his skull, and all fell once again into darkness._

* * *

**_I tried keeping it simple to understand, without too much complication. If it seems like Cynthia is rambling a bit...she is. Sorry if it's OOC, but realize they've been stuck on a foreign planet for three years and her entire attitude and survival method has changed to reflect this. Plus, her suit isn't the 2.0 that James is working with...which is a mixed blessing, as future chapters shall reveal. Yay Overdrive Meter! Anyways, please feel free to read and review. I love you all, my gentle snowflakes, and I'll be back soon to post Chapter 3: Endless Energy. ~Kyttin_**


	3. Endless Energy

_**A/N: It's been about a month since I last updated, right? My excuse...FINALS. Thankfully, my Spring semester of college is over and I'm taking the Summer session off, meaning I might be able to get more chapters written if only I can continue to squeeze inspiration out of my already-throttled brain. I'll do my best, guys. In the meantime, here's Chapter 3; I think I'm gonna stop posting chapters on IDOJ and refer everyone here, as nobody seems to be very active over there save for the admins and mods. **  
_

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 3: Endless Energy

"It's time to move," a voice called.

Cynthia stood straight up, eyes flying open, sword out and blazing. She automatically swung her blade in the shape of an X followed by a jabbing motion forward and backward. When her blade cut through the rock behind her, she adopted a defensive stance and looked around warily, unsure of her surroundings and her safety.

James knelt over the injured caracal, its partner sitting calmly beside them. She watched the clouded visor swing in her direction.

"When you've finished trying to annihilate what little air remains to the atmosphere," he whispered gently, "we must move to a new location. Two dead creatures in one local vicinity isn't nearly enough to drive off the creatures of the day or the night."

"James, you intend to move us by night?" she asked incredulously, stowing her blade at her hip. "What about the demons that roam the land by night?"

"We haven't a choice in the matter," he replied curtly. "While I formed a scouting circle, I spotted several rock formations nearby that weren't where they'd started off at yesterday morning. Based on my calculations…we have about twelve minutes before they will first start to come out, rock demon or otherwise…and we have about twenty minutes before we're completely overrun with monsters. If we don't move now, we'll be dead by midnight."

He had been gently prodding his index finger into the wounded cat's side, touching what looked to be very specific points of interest. With a nod of satisfaction, he slipped a necklace around the feline. Waves of blue light jettisoned out of the slim port on the front of the collar and enveloped the cat, cocooning it in a ball of nothing but pale blue light. When the light died, the cocoon had shrunk to the size of a pumpkin. James scooped it up with ease and fastened a harness to it, which he then strapped to himself. The caracal beside him seemed completely at ease with the situation and even yawned as if in boredom while he secured the clips.

"The cat won't be an issue now. We have its companion here to join us and help fight if need be. We have…" he glanced outside at the fading rays of the blood-colored sun "…eleven minutes. Cynthia, ready your weapon and move out. Chances are very likely that we'll be under heavy attack for the first few miles of travel. I hope you've rested well because you'll need that energy to run. We're not sticking around to fight the hoard of shadows that will want to plague us."

He stood, tilting his helmet toward her as he drew and split his sword, two sapphire-blue blades gleaming in his hands. He twirled them over the backs of his hands with a strange flicking motion of his hand and a dexterous finesse she'd not known him to possess. The weapons jumped back into his hands rather suddenly and flared a bit as he huffed.

"I'll be leading. Be sure to voice-activate your night-vision, radar, and infrared scanners; you'll need all of them if I'm predicting correctly."

And sometimes, one simply couldn't argue with someone who was correct eighty-nine point two three percent of the time. She drew her blade and whispered to her visor, watching in mute amusement and satisfaction as the tinted lens took on a greenish-blue hue with red spots where James and the caracal had been located. The bundle on James's back had disappeared entirely from her field of vision.

"In case you're wondering, the cocoon is made of a heat-blocking material composed of light particles and methane. It takes in the heat and light it puts out, thus creating a near-perfect circle of energy dispersal and gain. What isn't contained in the cycle is gently bled into either the cat or the atmosphere."

She didn't even get a chance to nod her comprehension; he'd already strode outside the cave and into the fissure, the healthy cat on his heels. She followed, readying her blade, feeling her energy flowing brightly and determinedly in her veins as she prepared for what lay ahead in the night.

"Stay close to me. We don't know exactly what lurks out here," his voice came over. He sounded completely at ease, if only mildly irked at the circumstances they found themselves in.

"Affirmative," she replied quietly, falling in stride behind him.

"Ten minutes," he whispered, his breath drawing fizzling to the line. In the stark flatness of the atmosphere, she thought she could hear movement and animal cries as the darkness began to descend. It was unnerving to feel watched from all sides by an unseen enemy that was literally nothing more than a shadow. She gathered a full-round scope of her location and surroundings. Nothing lit up on her radar nor in her infrared night vision, and so she continued the trek after her companion.

"Nine," the whisper stabbed at the silence. Not even their footfalls on the red dirt were making any noise; the vastness and emptiness of their location and the world itself was staggering. Even with James and the two cats near her, Cynthia had never been so alone and exposed to the surroundings, not even on the countless adventures she'd partaken in per James's request. There was something different about knowing space to be a vast, empty expanse versus being forced to realize that the soil they strode over so briskly had, at one point, been called Mother Earth.

"Eight."

She flexed. Her sword brightened a bit, dimming afterward as it borrowed her energy. She set her jaw, bracing herself mentally and physically for the inevitable onslaught they would fend against. If James's higher-than-normal level of command and urgency wasn't warning enough, the thickness of the approaching night was most definitely cause for alarm.

"Seven."

She heard a noise in the distance from somewhere behind her. "James, they've begun their approach. I heard one of them."

"They won't begin approach for another four minutes, at least. Keep pace. We're about a fourth of the way to our destination."

She could see the hazy smudge that was the city off to their right. They were headed parallel to it, presumably to a nearby location that would offer them some form of shelter for recuperation and tactical strategy formation.

"Six."

The plateau and the fissure they'd stayed in were slowly shrinking into the distance behind them. It was almost saddening to see their temporary home disappearing behind them. Cynthia half-wished she could stay there.

"Five."

Time seemed to accelerate. James hadn't changed pace. The sun was little more than a sharp sliver over the horizon. A noise like a distant shotgun blast met their ears, muffled and dulled by distance. She tried to push thoughts of it from her mind.

"Four."

The attack was imminent. It was only a question of how quickly they would reach their destination, or at the very least, the moment they'd be attacked. The thought scared her deeply, but she stowed the emotion. Never had fear been her enemy. Fear was only a feeling. It didn't cut her any slack.

"Three."

The sliver of sun was nearly gone. The city had become invisible in the night that gradually encroached upon them. Cynthia swallowed thickly and held her blade with a more practiced, prepared aura. She could hear distant noises that sounded like chirruping cicadas.

"Two."

"James, your radar reaches farther. Where are we, and where are they?"

"We are approaching the marker I laid out to represent the halfway point across this stretch of land. If we can make it past the halfway mark, we'll be reasonably safe."

"Reasonably?"

"The creatures on this side of the marker are different from those of the far side. We're approaching the marker. The creatures are moving at almost twice our pace and are slowly gaining on us."

She blinked, struggling to determine any way she could escape with her life.

"Two."

Only pale light over the distant horizon remained. Chasing the sun was as futile as it was necessary; if they could stay in decently-lit zones, they would be reasonably safe from nocturnal creatures. A distant shriek like that of a banshee met her ears, echoing and causing the hair on the back of her neck to stand straight up.

"One."

"How close are we?" she whispered urgently.

"Don't ask, just run. _Run!_"

They sprinted, a dead run into the fading sunset. She was hot on his heels, her feet and legs aching for rest as though she'd been running for miles. What she needed more than anything was a week of sleep and relaxation, something she probably wouldn't get.

"When I tell you to," his voice whispered across the line, no hint of fatigue or wear afflicting him, "stop running immediately. I'll direct you from there."

She knew better than to ask, and from the snarling roar behind them, she knew it was too late for them to escape their fate. They would die, alone, out in the wilderness under the blackened sky.

_Zero._

Swarming beasts could be heard everywhere except in front of them, where they ran blindly. Cynthia could only see about ten feet in front of her, for the visor wasn't strong enough to illuminate anything else. She flicked a glance backwards and saw several creatures that looked like giant spiders with long exoskeleton tails and needle-pointed pincers ready to gnaw her to pieces. She nearly cried out in fear, sprinting faster than before.

"Stop!"

She very nearly tripped over her feet as the voice startled her, but had she done so she would have perished, for one foot directly in front of her panting, frantic person was a cliff that dropped several hundred feet straight down. She spun around and stepped off the cliff, digging her blade into the wall and sliding her way down, using the energy from the sword to slice a thin crack down the wall. James had his own swords out and was spider-crawling down the wall, stabbing and retracting the blades faster than she could slide. He reached the bottom far sooner than she did, but at the base of the cliff lay a welcome sight: the sun was once again a sliver on the horizon.

The caracal jumped from its perch on James's back, exposing the bundle he carried. He strode ahead, resuming his fast pace. "The creatures on this side of the divider won't approach during the night. Rumor has it something far more sinister walks the land during the black hours of nonexistence."

She followed him, staying close, her blade drawn, wary of other presences that might attempt to attack. Nothing lit up on her radar, nor could her vision locate any presences beside their own.

The sun gently passed beyond the rim of the world, and all again fell into dark. They'd made it to the other side and were trekking to where James had said a safe place existed. They were safe. Things could only get better.

Cynthia moved to climb over a large rocky expanse that stretched a great distance in front of her, directly across her path.

"Stop!"

James had only hissed, but she jumped three feet straight backwards and drew her blade automatically.

"What?"

"Don't touch it."

"It?"

James stepped up beside her. "You touch this, you're dead. This is a Rock Titan, a behemoth the likes of which shouldn't exist. This monster is what guards the base of that cliff. It's here to keep creatures such as ourselves from breaching into its lair. You very nearly clambored over what appears to be an arm of some sorts, and it's not a light sleeper."

"But it's not registered as a creature on my radar nor does it have heat."

"Rocks don't hold enough heat to appear on infrared. And a Titan certainly wouldn't appear on any radar incapable of reading subatomic atmospheric pressure. I can see it even if you can't."

"Why can't you link me into the things you see?"

"It would confuse you terribly and drain our suits of energy faster than taking repeated physical damage. Not worth the risks."

"So now what? This thing is directly in our path."

"Simple: we either go around, or over."

He drew his blades and lunged, angling them like rudders from airplane wings. Some unseen draft carried him up and over the thick rocky wall, landing him gently on the far side where he could no longer be seen.

"Here, catch," he whispered. A soft whoosh echoed in her helmet, and she saw one glowing blue blade pinwheeling over the rock directly toward her. She watched it spin and leapt into the air, snagging the blade just before it had opportunity to cleave her in half. She swung it experimentally; it weighed slightly more than her own and glowed brighter, though the hilt was smaller and the blade was thinner. She twirled it and rotated her arms.

"Just rotate the blades as you need to keep yourself airborne; we can't have you land on this rock and wake the creature up."

"What about the caracal?"

The cat sat calmly by her side, gazing at the rock rather boredly. It yawned as an answer was deliberated.

"I'd not considered that...and it can't jump far enough into the air or across the ground to clear the rock. Try...retracting your blade. Place it on the cat's forehead and flex some power into it. Maybe it'll get the idea and jump."

She blinked and complied, feeling her energy bleed into the cat's body. Its eyes glowed in the darkness and its fur seemed to shine and offer energy. It crouched.

"Go for it," she encouraged.

The cat needed no second push. It vaulted into the air, high off the ground, directing its tail and limbs as it skimmed just over the surface of the rock. She heard a sharp intake of breath over the line.

"I think it touched the rock on the way over," a voice of caution said.

"The thing hasn't risen yet. Are you sure it's a Titan?"

"If it isn't a Titan, then it's the first living span of rock I've ever met."

She blinked, looking determinedly at her radar and night vision visor. Nothing seemed to be moving or out of the ordinary.

"Are you sure this is a Titan?" she asked once again.

"Yes. Positive."

"Maybe it's dead."

"Negative."

"Or in a heavy sleep."

"Possibly."

She flared her blade out once more. "I'll take my chances." She loaded her legs and vaulted from the floor, twisting through the air like an acrobat. She stuck the blades out sideways as she glided upside-down overtop the rock.

And with a heavy, uncomfortable shuddering and a sickening _crunch_ followed by the worst traumatic pain she'd ever known, Cynthia found herself flying through the air back toward the cliff face she'd just descended moments before. With a stroke of luck, she dug the blades horizontally into the rock face and gritted her teeth as her back shrieked unintelligible strings of curses at her. She released her blade and hung from the hilt of the blue one, looking back at the beast as it stood.

"So much for heavy sleep," she muttered dryly.

The Titan was called such for good reason. The iron alien creature was nothing in comparison to the Titan; it stood almost eighty feet tall and had four thick legs planted firmly into the earth below, each one the rough diameter of an eighteen-wheeled truck and trailer unit's length. The legs tapered into what looked to be the rock equivalent of a gigantic circular turntable, atop which resided a large inverted conical trunk that was, at its widest, as large around as several domestic houses clumped together. The head, or what could be called a head, was a large spherical ball of rock lumped up at the bottom and mounted securely to the inverted cone's large, thick base. Four massive arms that each reached the ground and were made of several tons of limestone and granite swung about, each reaching to squash down the blue-bladed hero as he jumped nimbly about its feet. One arm with pincers like an enormous lobster claw ground against the dirt as it attempted to crush him; another shaped like a gigantic battering ram pounded the earth right where he'd been standing not a half-second before. The other two, one in the shape of a giant rock sword, the other with a massive cylinder shielding much of its length, were swinging about, attempting to get a hit on the small, agile blue figure.

"James, what should I do?"

"Stay safe," came the immediate reply. She growled at him.

"I refuse," she returned, grabbing her blade and spider-crawling down the wall, her back protesting every movement.

"Then...just don't die," he conceded. "Please," he added, almost as an afterthought. No sense in whispering when the monster before them was echoing and gargling so loudly.

"How do I launch around like you?"

He wasn't immediate with a response, but after doing a fairly complicated dodge-tuck-roll-leap (which Cynthia could see, having reached the base of the cliff), he inhaled deeply.

"You have to be able to predict their movements. From there, just launch with one leg. Alternate your launches to even the wear in your legs. Calculating mid-flight trajectory is as simple as moving your blade or legs around to redirect your inertia. Just remember to watch for other attacks sure to be on the way." He had been skipping across the terrain and finally alighted on the creature's relative hips after having run vertically up one of its legs. "You should be two or three steps ahead and prepared for anything."

She pulled both blades from the wall and saw that he had four in his hands, all the same blue color, glowing and rippling as he launched onto a passing arm that attempted to batter him off. The claws snapped angrily as he scaled the rocky biceps.

Cynthia knew she was needed to distract the creature. She dashed lithely to the base of its feet and ripped her blade across one of its legs, her other hand holding James's blade aloft in preparation for the coming attack.

It came in the form of the battering arm plunging toward her from above. Her radar sensors signaled rapidly in her ears to indicate the fast-approaching object and she loaded her right leg. In the next instant, she pushed off and darted just out of the way of the limb, her momentum carrying her somewhere off underneath the creature's massive base, where again she dug the blades into its legs as she passed by.

"Don't try and block unless you know exactly how to counteract the intensity of the weight. If you mess up in a block, you could very well end up dead."

She landed right where she predicted the sword arm would slash at her, and with a charged jump, she sailed over it, landing very neatly on its broad side. She dug the blades into the rock and began scrabbling toward the base of the massive granite blade. With one arm latched onto James's blue blade, she charged her own blade and slashed viciously at the granite hilt.

She could feel the power rip deep into the creature's limb, but the slash did absolutely nothing to offer her any sort of advantage; the limb remained intact and visibly undamaged.

"Titans have massive amounts of power and energy, and thus can fight and heal themselves for hours on end. Trying to cut one apart is futile and usually leads to death. Just help me however possible."

"And how is that?" she panted, raking herself and the blades up the creature's massive arm.

"Distract it. Or help me disengage it."

"Disengage?"

"Titans are often part machine by build. If we can shut down some of the internal systems this thing is bound to possess, we can paralyze the beast into an unmoving, unreadable rock formation for a number of days."

She came abreast of the top of the monster's torso and saw James twirling his four blades in his hands, their likeness to a helicopter's propeller striking.

"Keep my blade; you'll need more than one. Are you hurt?"

Her back cried out in agony as she stretched, wary of the flying limbs and the massive head. "My back isn't right. I may have fractures or worse. No paralysis to report."

He hissed over the line. "Come, quick."

He launched toward her as she half-limped, half-ran toward him. They met halfway and he placed a retracted hilt against her forehead. She could feel a surplus of energy course through her veins, and the pain in her back lessened significantly.

"The hell?"

"Energy in its raw form has a variety of uses. You should feel rejuvenated and relatively pain-free. Don't get hurt again; I don't have any more energy to spare."

He launched away from her and ducked as a limb grazed the surface of the creature's shoulder region. She tucked against the thing's neck and held her breath as the sword blade nearly clipped her visor.

"James, we're in grave danger."

"I have a solution. What we need to do is get that arm with the cylinder to operate."

"What? You want to add to this chaos? Are you insane?"

"That arm has what looks to be an energy cannon on it." She heard a whoosh and a crinkle before he continued. "It could very possibly be used to damage itself, especially if it aims right here at its own neck. Perhaps we could gain entry to its inner workings."

"Remind me again why Titans aren't made of the same material all the way through?"

She pressed flat against its neck as the battering ram rippled past her, gusts of irritated atmosphere buffeting her harshly. "They just aren't," he replied. The fact that he had no scientific explanation was enough to chill her slightly. What she really wondered at that moment was how he knew so much, but that question would have to wait. The pincers narrowly missed splitting her body in half like a giant guillotine.

"Come to me! To me!"

She lunged left and watched the battering ram slam against its host's neck, earning her a cry of fury from the giant beast she stood atop. She vaulted over the sword as it swung past, then ducked under the pincers and rolled again from the battering ram to make it to her companion. She could see the fourth arm, inactive, hovering in the air, the end of it a mighty, gaping black maw of emptiness.

"That cannon right there could be our way in," he said. She would have melted at the sound of his beautiful tenor in her ears if the situation weren't so dire. Instead, she shook her head to ward off unwelcome thoughts and feelings as she regrouped.

"So how do we light it up?"

They darted apart as the sword lanced inward, then regrouped side-by-side as the maw of the cannon loomed in front of them.

"The only thing I can think of is energy."

That decided it. She plugged the borrowed sword into the rock beneath her feet and lunged toward the edge of the torso, gaze focused intently on the hovering arm.

"Cynthia, _no!_"

The command was lost on her ears as she charged her legs. With every last bit of determination she could squeeze into her legs, she noted the predicted trajectory and catapulted gracefully into the air, twirling to maintain a straight line to her goal.

She landed atop the barrel just shy of her predicted landing spot and spun on her heels, digging the blade in and using it as a method to keep from falling to the ground some eighty feet below, something which spelled certain death for her.

"Cynthia, it's too dangerous!"

She drove her blade deeper into the rock cannon and charged with every last bit she could muster. There was plenty to pull from, and she guessed that her wild leap hadn't cost her nearly as much energy as she'd believed it would. And with one final tap into her life force, from which she pulled about half and pooled it into her stored energy, she flooded the blade with a power the likes of which she'd never accomplished before.

The energy nearly split the hilt of the blade in half; so powerful and concentrated was the influx that the energy sword very nearly overheated and exploded. The transferred energy forced its way into the rock to dissipate and had the desired effect on the cannon: it began to glow, very softly, but with rapidly and measurable increasing density and power. It was charging, having been given the spark it needed to begin the process.

She ripped her blade from the rock, feeling dizzy from her exertions, and focused desperately on the four glowing windmills of James's blades as they spun in his hands. The glow was all she could see on her visor; everything else was meaningless to her. She pulled from anywhere and everywhere she could, even leeched from her life force once again, and formed a ball of energy that surged into her loaded, charged legs. They were beginning to cramp and strain from the rapid surging and unloading of energy. But for her legs to fail after coming so far would only mean utter hopeless defeat for them, for James would never survive if she weren't there keeping him grounded in their harsh, cold reality.

She felt her eyes struggling to close and enter the dream world. Her limbs began to sag and her vision grew clouded as the circular swirling became a blur of light. But with blind faith and sheer guts, she sprinted as fast and as hard as she could to the edge of the gigantic stone barrel, and with a grunt and an unspoken prayer for death to hold off on taking her life for just a short while longer, she lunged as hard and as far as she could.

By some miraculous stroke of good fortune, she smacked shoulder-first into the top of the creature's shoulder region and rolled into its neck, picking herself up slowly and clumsily right beside James and the blade she'd left in the rock. He grabbed her arm and yanked her to the side, ducking them both out of the way as the charge completed and unleashed.

The resounding blast nearly deafened them even with the pressure-sealed helmets and the decibel-limiters installed within. The rocking and shaking stopped, and so did the creature. It stood stock still, frozen in place, limbs dangling limply as the rock dust and chips cleared away. Cynthia had forgotten momentarily how to open her eyes and laid on the ground panting, hands clutched desperately to the pair of blades she'd been bent on recovering and holding onto. With a large internal struggle and a groan, she opened her eyes and pushed herself upright, sitting unsteadily against the being's neck.

James stood silently at her side, and she looked up to see his visor tilted down toward her.

"Are you alright?" she whispered, feeling drained and weak from the surge she'd emptied out of herself.

"Cynthia, you did it."

He sounded a tad surprised and a great deal thankful. He again pressed a retracted hilt against her forehead and poured some energy into her, enough to wake her up and get her standing more confidently once again. Nothing hurt bad enough to warrant immediate inspection; she'd gotten used to small aches and pains throughout the time she'd lived there.

"Alright, follow me closely. I don't know what lies inside since this thing is heavily guarded with a type of rock that defers radar penetration, so you'll need to offer me a rear guard of sorts. Don't exert yourself. You've done more than enough for me today."

She moved toward the scorched rocks, but a hand met her shoulder and held her in place. "And Cynthia...thanks for your help."

He strode briskly past her, as though uncomfortable with what he'd just said. She didn't know whether to laugh or cry, so she did neither and attempted to remain impassive as she approached the scorched rocks.

The true extent of the damage was immediately apparent; a gaping hole complete with rock chips and sparking wires met her eyes, and she followed James into the beast's neck, where she landed in a small, but lit, hallway of sorts.

"What...what is this thing?"

"My radar is detecting several life-forms within this body somewhere below us. My best guess is that it's a ship of sorts, a biotic, robotic ship that is alive as much as it is a machine. This thing obviously feels pain to a certain degree, but perhaps a look around will explain how it works."

He darted down a cramped hallway that was more like a tunnel at first glance. She chased after him, her energy and spirits renewed. James had thanked her for her help. That was an enormous feat for her since the man never asked for nor seemed to need help, ever, but twice in the same day she found herself guilty of helping him in vanquishing monsters. She felt a sense of pride and accomplishment; even if she'd only twice found herself in what she'd call genuine combat situations, she somehow felt a bit at home with the movements and attacks, as though watching James had rubbed off some skill and usefulness for her. But for him to have thanked her meant she'd been of real, genuine help to him, and that she was slowly working toward bringing him out of his isolation. It was a bubbly feeling within her, and not at all unpleasant.

"Stop."

They both paused, and Cynthia spun, blades ready, to face the noisy attacker coming from behind. But with a thud and a growl, the caracal stood and lounged up to them, purring loudly.

"Must've waited until we disabled the Titan. Smart cat."

James knelt and scratched its head. "Would you like to lead?"

As if the cat heard him, it strode ahead, tail swishing boredly. The trio descended a near-vertical spiral staircase and found themselves in another lit hallway of sorts, though considering it only just barely stood six feet tall and three feet wide, it wasn't a traditional hallway. Perhaps the five-foot-tall doors housed midgets. Or dwarves. Or worse.

Down another staircase. The hallways were all beginning to look the same, with nothing terribly different about any one floor over the next. There had to be something, even if insignificant, to break the monotony.

The next staircase led them into a small arena, where the floor was flat and stretched between all rock walls like a giant unmovable trampoline skin.

"Must be a training ground," James whispered. They strode toward the next staircase, ready to make yet another descent.

"The next floor should be where the creatures are," he informed as they approached the staircase. "Be wary of a possible attack."

Cynthia nodded. She didn't know if she could handle yet another attack from an abnormal, obscene foe on the godforsaken earth. It might just be the end of her.

But much like her companion, she shrugged her shoulders back and trudged ahead, striding purposefully toward the staircase across the room. She watched the caracal and James drop below the ground and heard a gasp in her ear.

"What the?"

She darted down the spiral steps as quickly as she dared, striking a defensive stance behind the other two of her party. But what stood before her wasn't some alien lifeform or deviant malevolent force. Rather, what had surprised James so much was the fact that before them stood

"Children?"

Six or seven children stood huddled in groups of twos and threes, pressed back against control panels lining the walls. Cynthia stepped around James and passed his blade back into his hand. She stowed her own and knelt, disabling the night-vision visor and engaging the external audio projection machine at the chin of her helmet.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

The children all jumped at the sound of her husky voice and looked even more terrified than before. Their ratty clothing and dirty hair quivered on their small frames as they attempted to shrink even further under the stares of the strangers. Cynthia held up her hands as she knelt before them.

"We mean you no harm."

One brave boy who looked to be about twelve years old, the eldest among them, stepped forward slightly, two small girls hiding behind his back as best as possible. His lower lip wobbled as he attempted feebly at putting up a brave front.

"We've been stuck here."

"Without food and shelter?"

He shook his head slowly, eyes wide. "There's a lot of food. We have beds in the other room."

"What about clothing?"

He shook his head again. "We aren't allowed to have more clothes."

"Aren't allowed? Who doesn't allow you?"

He covered his mouth and screwed up his face. "I can't tell you. Mom said not to talk to strangers."

The whole group was nodding. Cynthia looked over her shoulder at her companion, who merely shrugged at her as he stowed his blades.

"Where is your mother?"

"Dead."

He spat the word out as though it were venom.

"And your father?"

"Dead."

"What about your family?"

"This is my family. We aren't all brothers and sisters, but we all live here together."

"Why?"

"Because we have to."

Cynthia's head began to hurt. The boy was speaking in circles and wasn't giving her any information. "We mean you no harm. Is there…is there somewhere we can stay for the night?"

"Cynthia," a voice hissed in her ear, "we can't go about trusting children for no good reason. We don't know who or what they are."

"Relax, James," she replied, disabling the projection system. "I don't sense any hostility in them."

"But I sense hostility somewhere onboard this behemoth."

She engaged the projection system again. "Who else is in here besides the seven of you?"

"Big."

"Big?"

The boy nodded. "He calls himself Big. Big Boss Man. He tells us what to do and hits us if we don't do it."

She gasped softly. "Where is he?"

"If he isn't sleeping, he's probably in the kitchen."

"Take me to him."

He looked mortified at the thought. "He'll hurt me!"

She drew her blade. "Not if I hurt him first," she replied simply.

The boy gulped and nearly ran from her down the hall, passing all the other children and the control booths. Cynthia followed briskly, her blade shimmering slightly. She could feel her energy fading and her entire body ached for rest, but she had one final mission to accomplish.

Traipsing feet behind her and a quick glance over the shoulder showed her that all six other children were trailing behind her, followed by James and the caracal. None of the children seemed bothered by the massive cat behind them, but all were terrified of what waited for them.

The boy stopped and twisted a door knob. It swung open to reveal a brightly lit tiled room. Humming could be heard from a watery voice inside.

"He's in there," the boy whispered. Cynthia stepped through the doorway.

"So, Alpha, have you come to ask for more food?" the voice taunted. "I gave you your rations for today," the large Caucasian man chuckled. "Were those dinner scraps not enough for your tiny belly? Or maybe you shared some with Delta yet again?"

The fat man turned around, wearing an apron and wielding a frying pan. His expression went from jolly to confusion to horror.

"Who the hell are you? And…oh my God…it's _you! _The One wants your head!"

He threw the frying pan across the room, but it smacked into the table midway and threw boiling grease all over the wood. He began reaching for knives, forks, spoons, spices, anything he could get his hands on to use as a throwing weapon. Cynthia, however, was far faster, and had flitted behind him and with one arm around his neck, had the tip of the blade suspended in front of his face. His eyes crossed as he attempted to stare at the chartreuse point mere inches from his nose.

"You must be Big."

His beady eyes flicked up to her visor and then back at the sword. "Who's asking?"

She very nearly drove the blade into his face, but held off only due to determination. "I'm the Uranus Queen," she growled, wiggling the blade before his face. "The Neptune King is here as well. Would you like him to cut your face off, or shall I?"

The man began screaming for help, but the seven children did little more than stand and stare at him blankly. With one deft flex, Cynthia throttled him into unconsciousness. She stood and hefted his bulk onto her shoulders, dropping it heavily onto the boiling grease and creaky table.

"What should we do with him?"

James had entered the room, blades stowed, bundle still strapped tightly. "Should we kill him?"

They looked to the children. Most of them were nodding. Cynthia sighed.

"I can't do it in front of them. But I know a way that would make it entertaining for us adults."

She ushered the children out of the room, dragging James by the arm. She disabled the projection system momentarily. "Leave the caracal in the room. It should understand what to do."

He nodded. She could imagine the small smile that would have graced his features on any other day back at home. A grim line was far more likely. He turned and strode back into the room, undoing the bundle on his back as she ushered the children down the hall, shutting the kitchen door behind her. She knew he had a bloodlust to satisfy, and that he'd have it via the portly man.

The children didn't need much coaxing to leave the room; she had a sneaking suspicion they knew exactly what would be happening beyond the sealed door. They all kept a wary eye on her and stopped back in the control room. She knelt and turned the projection system back on.

"Look…we might not know each other, but my companion and I are in desperate need of a place to sleep this evening. We won't offer you any trouble. We don't even need any food, water, bathroom, nothing; this armor takes care of it. We just need somewhere to rest our heads. Is there any way I can ask for a bed or two to borrow?"

The leader nodded. "We have a spare in our room. It should be big enough for you two to share, but that stuff you're wearing might make it uncomfortable."

Cynthia wanted to laugh, but couldn't remember how. "I can't take it off. It protects me. I doubt my companion would want to remove his suit, either."

"Then…we only have two questions for you."

She waited patiently while the leader blinked at her meaningfully.

"You and him…you're wanted, aren't you?"

She sighed. "We're wanted by the One for reasons we don't fully understand. There's a huge price on each of our heads."

The boy nodded. "I knew that when I saw you. A news report on the monitors said something about stolen power armor a year or two ago."

"That sounds about right. What's your second question?"

He hesitated. "Well…you don't seem like a bad person, but you're wanted, so I don't know if we can trust you…"

A young girl of about five spoke up. "Will you keep us safe?"

The innocence and squeak of raw life in her voice was enough to wrench the beating heart within Cynthia's chest. "I will do everything in my power to see to it that you all remain safe, healthy, and alive. And I'm sure James will agree."

"Even if I may not be so happy about it," his tenor thrummed into the room. He strode up behind her and gazed over her head at the children. "It's in my best interest to leave as much baggage behind as possible, but I cannot sacrifice the lives of seven young children of the future generation to die out here in the wilderness. I will keep you all safe, so long as you do what the Uranus Queen and I say. There are a great many dangers in the vast land that exists outside, and we don't have time or energy to be wasted double-checking everything or doubling back on our tracks to recuperate and recover missing personnel or items. Stick with us and listen when spoken to, alright?"

They all nodded in unison. "Neptune, you don't need to be so harsh on them."

"Uranus, it's only necessary."

"Are those your real names?"

The boy had spoken. The two looked at each other.

"No, but they're titles we've been given by others we've encountered. It's best if you know us as the Neptune King and Uranus Queen to protect our identities."

The group nodded collectively. "Well, I'll show you to the room."

"Will you all be joining us?"

He shrugged. "It depends on what they all want. I have to keep watch for at least part of the night every night."

Cynthia nodded. "Come, Neptune. Rumor has it an actual bed awaits us."

"Oh, how quaint. I might actually miss sleeping on dirt and rocks for an evening," he muttered dryly. She almost felt the urge to playfully smack him in the arm return to her. Almost.

"Here we are," the boy announced. The room had bunk beds stacked three high on two of the walls, a fourth double-bunk stacked in the corner haphazardly. The bottom bunk was a double-wide and looked as though it could indeed house two adults comfortably.

"Well, I'm exhausted," Cynthia admitted. James stretched.

"I could go for another few hours."

She flicked the panel on his right shoulder up and spun the dial to zero. He slumped and fell unconscious on the spot. "No, you can't."

She carried him to bed. "Hey, Alpha…thanks for doing this. I appreciate it."

He nodded solemnly. "Just make sure you both get your rest and keep your promise…for their sakes."

And with that, he turned and left. The grim line returned to her lips, fighting for her to remember how to smile and laugh. It was tiresome and frustrating. She sighed and laid down, dragging James into bed beside her. They both laid flat on their backs, and with one slow final blink her world dropped into blackness.

_Pain rolled and frothed at the teeth as Jimmy attempted to open his eyes and sit up. He heard similar moans and groans of pain around him. He coughed; the air tasted foul and had some sort of sulfuric quality to it. He mentally checked his limbs and ligaments. Nothing seemed broken. The worst of the pain was the cut across the top of his forehead, about an inch long and very shallow in depth. _

_"Jimmy, are you okay?"_

_He looked up and focused on a very concerned Cindy standing over him, eyes shimmering uncertainly._

_"Mostly bruises and bumps. I'm alright."_

_"Good," she sighed. Then, with a grunt, a sharp new pain needled into his cheek._

_"Ow! What the?"_

_"Neutron, you idiot! Where the hell are we?"_

_He rubbed his stinging cheek, noting that her palm was pink. Her eyes were fiery and angry, glaring at him. As if he had caused it all himself._

_"Well, maybe I can figure that out if you steel your hand from hitting me," he replied smoothly, standing and dusting himself off. A creak drew his attention and he noted the crushed remains of the rocket buried partway into the dirt. He approached the lump of folded metal and wiring and ran a scan with his watch._

_"It seems we've been asleep for only about two hours since the impact."_

_"That's great, brainiac, but could you please focus on figuring out where we are?"_

_"Girl, you need t' let off his case a bit. Jimmy's a smart guy; he'll figure it out."_

_The groaning voice of a groggy, aching Libby distracted Cindy from her tirade against the genius. She moved to her friend's aid while he scoured the rocket._

_"Well, my hypercube's here, but that's about it. Anything else that I'd packed is either ruined or has disappeared."_

_"Nothing made it?"_

_"Nothing that wasn't somewhat interdimensional."_

_"So what does that mean?"_

_Jimmy looked around. Carl and Sheen were both awake, and for once both were silent. He approached Carl and scanned his shirt with a carbon-tracing wand from within the hypercube. He then prodded the dirt, and then prodded Carl's shoes. Jimmy's watch gave off a constant holographic readout projected into the empty space above his left wrist. _

_"So?"_

_"Well...I need to run another scan or two before I can say anything for certain."_

_He dropped the wand back into the cube and pulled out what looked to be a voltage meter, complete with positive and negative contact readers. He spun the dial on the face of the machine, pushed a button, and tapped the contacts against the rocket's afterburners. A beep emitted from the machine and he stowed it, turning back to his watch and pushing a button for his laser cutter. He aimed it at the sky directly over their heads and fired a single beam, which lanced through the reddish atmosphere and disappeared somewhere among the clouds._

_"Alright, big brain. What's the verdict?"_

_"Easy, Cindy. Don' push the man who's gonn' get us outta here alive."_

_Jimmy cleared his throat and the four gathered around him._

_"What I have to say...you aren't going to be pleased by any one bit of it."_

_"Well, we're here Jim. We want to hear it whether or not we'll like it," Carl soothed._

_"Yeah, Jimmy. It can't be as bad as when the egg-heads came and stole our parents. Heck, this could even be like Ultralord episode five-forty-five, where Robo-fiend-"_

_"Sheen, for once in your life, please shut your yap," Cindy growled. Sheen fell silent, blinking apologetically at Jimmy._

_"Right, well, obviously we aren't on Earth. At least, not our own Earth."_

_"Our own?"_

_"From what I've gathered, we're on a planet that is still Earth, but...it's not the one we're from. It's not from our 'when' or our 'where'."_

_"When and where?"_

_"Our 'when' is our timeline and our stream of time. Our 'where' is the spatial location we're found in. According to what I've figured, we're about sixty years ahead of our 'when' back home."_

_"S-sixty years?"_

_"Easy, Cindy, easy. That's not the worst of it."_

_She blinked, growling._

_"Not only are we sixty years into the future, we've been translated into an alternate universe. I've done some scans, and we're about five U out of our own location."_

_"Five U?"_

_Jimmy drew a short stick from the hypercube and knelt. He drew a circle, writing an X in the middle._

_"This is where we're from."_

_He then drew a line about a foot long extending from the edge of the circle, then connected the line to another circle forming a small daisy chain. He drew a one inside the new circle."_

_"This would be one U away. The distance between these two is several billion trillion light-years."_

_Cindy gaped. Libby looked stunned. Sheen looked bored. Carl was confused._

_"Let's say this foot-long line is one trillion, trillion light years, at the absolute least. That means..." he trailed off, drawing daisy chains with circles labeled two, three, four, and O, each with foot-long lines between them. _

_"That means we're at least five trillion, trillion light years away from our universe, or more commonly known in the scientific community as five U. We're five universes away from our home universe, sixty years forward in time."_

_Now everyone looked terrified. Jimmy gulped._

_"That's still not the worst of it._

_"I tested the soil and the rocket metal, and from what I can conclude there's been a nuclear horror holocaust that's taken the world into its clutches, suffocating the atmosphere and drowning out the survival rate for humanity like a fetus dropped into an icy lake."_

_"In English, please?" Sheen asked._

_"There's poisonous nuclear radiation in the air and the dirt," Cindy clarified. Carl yelped._

_"Notice there aren't any plants or animals running about. There's only that dome over there with houses inside."_

_He coughed. "My best guess is that we'd need to go to the city and get some intel about where and when exactly we're located, and figure out what happened. Judging by my scanner, I'd say it'll take about...an hour to reach the edge of that city. But that might not be safe. We don't know what resides there."_

_"Jimmy, are you being serious right now? That city is the only chance we have of survival."_

_He wiped a slim trickle of blood from his brow across the back of his wrist, blinking hopelessly at Cindy. "I don't know what to do. I dragged you guys into this crap again! I told you we'd be having a get-together, not that we'd be doing interdimensional warp travel!"_

_He slammed his fist against the side of the rocket and a hollow twisted note like a broken gong echoed deep within its belly._

_"Where were we supposta go, Jimmy?"_

_He slowly turned and looked dejectedly at Libby while she waited, ever-so-patient for his answer. He sighed._

_"I wanted...to get us into that tesseract...where we'd end up on the far side of Pluto, six hundred years in the future. According to my probe, the data I received stated that there would be a meteor shower with metallic, flaring colors, followed by an ice storm that would make a mockery of a normal blizzard but would be made of the most pure and crystalized water particles. After that...a comet would flare up about an hour later, creating a dazzling white light with a rainbow reflection of color across its tail. I...I thought it would be absolutely beautiful."_

_He sighed defeatedly, slumping against the tattered hull of the useless rocket. "My intentions were good, as usual, but the result was a flop, as usual. What good is it being a genius if I'm incapable of making simple calculations? How could I have forgotten the variable intensity theory?"_

"_The what?"_

"_The VIT is an idea that is yet unproven. It basically states that spaces made of nonexistence or antimatter, such as the inside of a black hole, worm hole, or tesseract, don't adhere to the laws of physics or directive. Basically, what I forgot is that the tesseract is like a hurricane of sorts. You can fit something small and insignificant down the eye and have no problem with the result; it'll come out the other side smiling. But when you try and cram something the size of a small asteroid into the eye of a large hurricane, chances are it'll spin, get dragged into the current, and get thrown somewhere completely different from its destination. My rocket was that asteroid. It's a miracle we even managed to stay all together."_

"_Then that tesseract couldn't have been large at all!"_

"_Exactly. Which is why my probe was only about the size of a fingernail. The rocket was nearly as wide as the tesseract's girth."_

"_So we kinda tumbled around like wet laundry in a dryer."_

_He paused, sitting rather heavily on the dirt. "In an abstract sort of way, yes."_

_He hung his head, drawing his knees to his chest and looping his arms together around them. "Not again…this can't be happening again…"_

_Nobody said anything, though the four who remained standing exchanged looks. Sheen mimed winding his hand against the side of his head. Carl smacked him, shaking his head._

"_It's like this every time. I'm a genius. I see something cool or invent something new. I try and test out my theory or invention. And every single time, I drag all four of you into this mess with me to help clean it up. You didn't even ask for this to happen!"_

_He began smacking his forehead against his knees, muttering "I'm an idiot" repeatedly. Libby looked at Cindy with a rather worried expression on her face. Cindy sighed and knelt before the man._

"_Jimmy. We may not have asked for any of this to happen. But without you, Libby and Sheen wouldn't be dating. You and I would never have gotten close. Carl wouldn't really have anybody he could count on or be friends with. You brought us all together, one little adventure at a time. So what if we don't always want to go along with your plans? So what if they seem to go awry more often than they go flawlessly? And so what if we have to help you clean up the mess? We're your friends. That's what friends are for, Jimmy. We help each other. We forgive each other for shortcomings and mistakes. And we grow from each other. So, it's time for you to grow up a little bit and see that, like it or not, we're here, and we aren't gonna get off this rock unless we all do it together, just like old times."_

_He screamed in frustration. "This isn't your burden to bear! You didn't have anything to do with it! This is all my fault! MY fault!"_

_Cindy drew back her hand and slapped him upside the head so hard he fell over and hit the dirt with a light exclamation, a light puff of reddish dust blossoming from the earth. He looked up at her in anger and shock._

"_Get it through your thick skull. For someone who's supposedly such a genius, you really are clueless. It doesn't matter if you didn't want this to happen or didn't plan on this happening. The fact of the matter is, it happened. We're here. And it's up to ALL OF US to figure out how to get out of here. But you and I both know that standing around out here in the poisonous atmosphere isn't doing any of us any favors."_

_The cut was trickling again. His eyes darted back and forth between hers, then stilled their movements rather suddenly. He stood, dusting himself off once again._

"_Then, we have a city to explore," he said gravely, cracking his neck loudly left and right. In all her years of knowing the man, she'd never seen him do such a thing. But without a single extra word or comment from the steeled man, he strode directly toward the gigantic hazy dome, not bothering to look back and see if his posse was behind him. Yet they followed on, like dogs following their master, wherever he would or could lead them._

_Unbeknownst to them all, the trickle of blood that dripped from Jimmy's face struck and soaked into the dirt underfoot, and it was slightly thin and a bit tainted even as it dripped from his face. And none of them could foresee the repercussions the simple problem of an open wound would bring about._

* * *

_**Next chapter will be up as soon as I can get Chapter 5 beta'd by the wonderful Seas of Sorrow (assuming she's truly interested and available to do so) and get Chapter 6 in the making. Chapter 4's title will be called Rape of the Young Morning and might require a bit of reader discretion; this story's rating is listed as tentative, though it should be generally Teen in nature. I love all you guys, and I hope to see you soon, either here or for a new chapter of Pushed to Breaking Point. ~Kyttin**  
_


	4. Rape of the Young Mourning

_**A/N: Technically, I shouldn't be posting this chapter right now...I'm out in the middle of almost nowhere at my lakefront property using my dad's iPhone as a hotspot. I don't want to wait to post this for another week when I get back, and besides that it happens to be a countrywide holiday. I'm convinced.**  
_

_**Before I let you run off and read the newest installment of this story, I'd like to give a large amount of thanks to my new beta, a user by the name Seas of Sorrow. She's been an enormous help and a real sweetheart in putting up with my crap for the past few days, and it's thanks to her that this chapter is ready for you guys. She's inspired me to continue writing and I'm currently working on Chapter 8 of this story, the title of which is yet unreleased. She's become my muse for the moment and has twisted this story to a new direction. It's about to get a whole helluva lot longer.  
**_

_**Anyways, I can't remember who reviewed this story, so I'll skip shoutouts and go right to it. Happy reading! :)**_

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 4: Rape of the Young Mourning

Cynthia awoke rather suddenly after having only a light dreamless rest and a couple bouts of fitful tossing about the bed. She hadn't even slipped under the ratty comforter, though with the armor on it made little difference. The thick blanket would have most likely only hindered her progress if an assailant decided to mark her as its prey and attack her. Though, with seven children, James, and a caracal on-board, an attack didn't seem likely in the least.

She blinked a few times, gazing into her visor. The room was dark, so she couldn't see anything around her, and it was at that moment she realized there were no windows to let light in and illuminate her surroundings. Hardly strange, given she had fallen asleep somewhere within the innards of a Titan a short while after having disabled it and its operator. Still, the oppressive blackness made her a tad uneasy, and as she rolled herself into a sitting position on the edge of the bed, she suddenly felt a twinge of fear prod her subconscious, somewhere between the base of her skull and the nape of her neck.

She turned around, whispering the voice command to enable the night vision visor. James appeared to be sleeping very deeply, very peacefully, and she blinked at him, eyes still struggling to grow used to the light. It had been more than an age since she'd last slept comfortably, and longer still since she'd slept on a mattress of any kind, and she felt a small prick of nostalgia for the mornings she'd had trouble opening her eyes to greet the encroaching morning back at home. Still, every day had brought more of her favorite genius with it, and that thought alone was almost always enough to wake her up thoroughly and with striking ease.

She paused. Long had it been since she'd last let her emotions decide to take their toll on her body and mind, and longer still since she'd actually felt anything more than acceptance and cold brutality toward the world around her. Why, now, was she suddenly regaining some sense of the way things had been before they'd gotten entangled in the web of lies and deceit? Where had her mind and life changed so horribly for the worse? When had she turned into an unfeeling robot bent only on survival?

No. Not a robot. Only James was capable of that. He was the only person she knew who could successfully mask his inner turmoil beneath a stoic, determined shell. It was a shell he'd holed up inside of from the first day, and he'd been loath to even poke his head out and observe the surroundings.

She gazed at him and was reminded of a time three years off when he'd been her sweetheart. She didn't even know what they were classified as. Life partners? Soul mates? They didn't seem to share much love or affection. It seemed to her like they mostly just covered each other's backs when need be without much consideration for the implications their actions could produce when viewed by others. She couldn't even begin to ascertain her own feelings, let alone James's. He'd been shut within himself for so long she didn't even know if he felt anything any longer. What she knew wasn't much more than the simple testament of his verifiable genius, the only thing that had kept them both alive for three years. It was the only thing she'd learned to expect from him anymore.

No love. No relationship. Not even platonic feelings existed for him any longer. There was a time she'd wanted to give him everything. She wanted to be the love of his life, his trophy girl, the one he could take anywhere and be proud of. She wanted to be his devoted lover, the only one he ever wanted or needed. She wanted to make other girls jealous of what she had just as much as she wanted to make his guy friends jealous of what he had. She'd wanted him to feel lucky and special; like he was the only one she'd ever want or love. Hell, she'd even been willing to offer sex to him, would openly and gladly lose her virginity to him, even if he was a total dunce in the sack. She wouldn't mind because she'd loved him and wanted to share that with him.

But then…the situation had changed. They never got a moment for that sort of intimacy after being warped to a ghost image of their former home. The fire that had once burned so strong within her, fueled only by her feelings for him and the care and affection he showed, no matter how shyly or discretely, had been stifled to nothing but smoldering embers. Even as she looked at the sleeping figure of the man she was once able to say she loved, she couldn't decide what emotion she felt around him. Perhaps the only reason they were still together and alive was because they only trusted each other, but not because there was any love between them. She didn't know.

She blinked and stretched, cracking the nitrogen bubbles that had formed in her back the night before and feeling sweet relief at the short surge of endorphins and adrenaline the simple loosening of her muscles brought on. She gazed back at James while stretching her arms and cracking her fingers.

He hadn't stirred. This was odd, as he was usually a lighter sleeper than she was, especially once they'd travelled to the Parallel and he'd taken all blame upon his shoulders. His chest rose and fell rather shallowly given the state of deep slumber he appeared to be in. Cynthia paused, gazing at him curiously. From what she knew of sleep, he appeared to be in a state of what could be critical stasis, the point between consciousness and coma. She shook his shoulder, jumbling his body about like a ragdoll as she tried to rouse him, but to no avail; he still stayed in stasis. Concerned, she rolled him onto his stomach and pulled him closer, flicking the shoulder panel up. With a light roll of her finger, she flicked the Overdrive from zero to one and watched the needle raise itself just a hair off the zero mark. She held her breath.

Four seconds later, the needle rose into its normal location for level one Overdrive and the man stirred, rolling onto his back before sitting up slowly, propping himself on his elbows. Cynthia felt her brows furrow, but didn't have any idea who had furrowed them for her.

"James, are you alright?"

His helmet twisted left and right slowly, seemingly drinking in the surroundings, before he popped his neck left and right, stretching a bit the way she had. His visor then seemed to settle on her own as she gazed at him, attempting to telepathically show him care and concern.

"I don't remember anything after seeing the large unconscious man in the kitchen," he replied slowly, voice back to a whisper. She blinked at him.

"You don't remember the children or falling asleep?"

The helmet slowly twisted left and right to show negation. She inhaled slowly.

"After you left the caracal in the kitchen, I talked with the children. Alpha suggested we sleep on this bunk bed, and when you said you'd stay up for another few hours I turned your Overdrive off so you could finally rest yourself."

She wasn't able to see neither his facial expression nor his skin, but the tension that pervaded the air led her to the conclusion that he'd paled and was slightly in panic mode.

"What level was the Overdrive meter at?"

"The number said four. I turned it all the way to zero and it was like you passed out on the spot."

A long breath staticked its way across the link. "You might as well have taken that saber to one or two of my vital organs."

"I don't understand."

He sighed. "When you drop the Overdrive any more than two numbers at once, the immediate energy drain effect can cause the person in the suit to go into a coma, or worse, their mind can become entangled in the drastic, deathly effects of permanent limbo. I'm lucky I woke up, Cynthia."

"But all I had to do was flick the Overdrive back on to one."

The helmet rocked back and forth. "It's not that easy. I have to possess enough conscious awareness of myself and my body, regardless of my mental state or clarity. I have to know I have the energy and physically bring myself back even with the help of the meter. And I have to know that there will be strain on my mind from the Overdrive's supercharge ability. It's entirely possible that I might not wake up if I can't locate and harness enough energy to stabilize my body, mind, and state of being. I could be a perpetual vegetable, forever trapped in the limbo of my own mind."

Her blood ran icy at his words. Sure, his elegant speech and coherence sounded poetic, but the words that tumbled into her ears from his mouth weren't words of someone in love with her. They were words of someone not only disappointed in her, but afraid of her actions and motives. She instantly felt like an abhorrent person for nearly killing off the only other living being on the planet with whom she had any sort of bond or connection.

"Isn't there any way to bypass the Overdrive? You can't keep running on mental strain, airborne energy, and sheer determination. You'll burn out, James."

"There isn't any bypass. The Overdrive is the only tool I possess other than my intellect that will help keep me alive out here because it is what pushes me harder, faster, stronger than I could ever imagine being. If I lose the Overdrive out here, I'll tire quickly and become unable to defend us against creatures better off dead. I'll become an intelligent paperweight on your conscience and morale. I can be of no help to anyone, least of all you, if I am to let fatigue and lack of muscular definition stand in my way of survival."

"That's all this is to you? Survival?"

"That's all it need be. That's all I have to work with. I didn't ask for this. None of us did."

"But all the memories we share…what happened to 'us?'"

He went silent for a moment. "Obviously, Fate had a different idea of what to do with us and how to pass our proverbial poker cards around. Every hand's a winner. Every hand's a loser. It's time to see how well we can play the hands we've been dealt."

"And what about the others? Carlton? Sheen? Liberty? They were dealt hands, too. Does that mean they played incorrectly?"

He paused, seemingly choosing his words carefully. She hadn't spoken in annoyance or anger, though she believed he sensed it in her. She spoke with more sadness and longing in her voice than rage.

"Fate may have given them hands that left them with little to no alternative. Some people can win on a fair, random shot. Some people can win by dumb luck. And some people…some people can win on a bluff. This Overdrive is as much my trump card, my ace of spades, as it is my bluff, Cynthia."

"And my trump card? My bluff?"

"You have two."

"Which are?"

"The first is your lack of closing off your emotions. That in itself is powerful, for emotions drive us to do things we never would have guessed we could do and we transcend the capabilities we are bound to as humans. "And the other?"

"Me."

She blinked. He had a point. He was her trump card because he was the genius that could fix their situation. And what astounded her about what he had to say was that he wasn't in the least bit cocky about his importance to her, both for her emotional stability and their necessity for survival. He merely stated a fact as though it were an obvious observation and Cynthia couldn't help but silently agree with him.

"You're my trump card?"

"I'm your only hope of survival, aren't I?"

She paused. He either just admitted a grave, unspoken truth they'd agreed upon or he'd insulted her and her capabilities. She wasn't sure which he'd done or attempted to do, but she didn't get a moment to ask as he stood from the bed and strode for the door, right hand idly fingering the hilt of his blade. She still didn't understand how he could split the blade into so many pieces. She didn't even know how many times it could be split, or if there was a limit.

Standing, knees somewhat shaky, she cracked her limbs once more and followed her companion, who had paused in the hallway. She could almost sense him trying to ascertain his location and she rested her hand gently on his shoulder, holding him back for just a brief moment before the conversation faded into oblivion forever.

"And I'm your only hope for sanity, James."

He nodded the tiniest of nods and stepped slowly to the side as she passed by him, navigating through the labyrinth of the beast. She felt a little more whole, as though some of the tattered remains of the heart she'd once possessed were still beating, somewhere, and were slowly starting to repair themselves. She knew, could feel it in her blood and in her gut, that he was very slowly starting to crack open and return to the world as himself. She could only hope she'd be successful.

They crossed the threshold of the main control room to find one of the caracals lying curled in the corner, two of the younger children nestled into its fur and fast asleep. Alpha noticed them in the room and stepped forward, the small group of children following him cautiously.

"The Elite Alumni."

Cynthia knelt. "Where did you hear about that?"

"I did some research last night. I knew I saw you somewhere before. It was on the big screen in the middle of the city, back when I lived there. You two broke in and escaped. But…you had friends with you. Are they dead?"

The bluntness of his question struck her by surprise. This boy, a mere child, had asked such a pointed question without any reservations or hesitation. Surely he was not the average child.

"At least two of them are," Cynthia replied quietly. "It's most likely that the third is dead, too."

"Enough," James commanded. He strode away, and the distant sound of a hatch opening reached their ears. He returned with the other caracal behind him, its breathing somewhat labored, and its gait uneven and unsteady. Its fur was stained with dried blood, and its teeth and tongue had a dark red tinge to them that hadn't been there previously.

"Is that cat healthy enough to be out of its cocoon?"

"If it chooses to be independent and strong-willed, let it be. If it chooses to allow me to help it, I shall. This animal has control over its own actions."

The caracal sniffed at Cynthia's helmet as it walked by, stopping only to sit beside its companion. The sleeping caracal began to purr, as though it instinctively knew its friend had come back to it.

"So peaceful." She whispered softly.

James turned on his heel and moved to leave, but Cynthia reached her arm out and touched her hand to his forearm from her position by the floor. He paused and let the unasked question hang in the air.

"Alpha, take us to a meeting room or something. We've got a bit of a discussion that needs to take place."

The boy nodded resignedly, scratching his head. "This way," he coaxed, stepping around the adults. Cynthia stood up and followed James as he strode after the small child.

"In here," the boy called, passing through a doorway to their right. The room was small, smaller than the bedroom, but it was large enough to house the two Alumni, Alpha, and the four children that had followed them. James and Cynthia took seats, sitting gingerly as though tensed for a possible attack. Alpha sat on the edge of the table, the children gathered around at odd, interspersed intervals.

"My name isn't really Alpha. It's Gavin."

They waited, nodding slowly. "My younger sister is sleeping on that lion. Her name's Julie. The other girl with her is Suzie. This here's Jason, Mary, Kyle, and Dawn."

Each of the four in the room nodded in turn as they were addressed. "I'm thirteen, and I'm the oldest. Everyone in this room is between ten and twelve years old. The other two are eight and six. We've been here together since the second wave."

"The second wave?" James sounded curious and a tad unsteady.

"The first wave came when The One took over. Nobody ever saw a face, so we don't know if it's a boy or a girl. It seems like a boy, though. And he…he started about eight years ago. A lot of this is what my mom and dad told me before they died.

"He took power. He got strong because he was smart. Very smart. He became the mayor of the city and the governor of the state. The first thing he did was to build that giant tower in the middle. Then he built the dome around the city.

"After that, he went crazy. Everyone thought he was crazy before, but he went even crazier. He started blowing everything up, bombing everyone with nukes like they were rain. Acid rain, he called it. He said he was purging the earth of unfaithful, disloyal infidels who were staining the idea of humanity.

"The earth turned red from all the warring and the bombs. Mom said I used to wake up screaming at night when I was young because all the explosions around the city were so scary and terrible. Everything turned to ash. We couldn't even leave the city dome because it was so poisonous outside. The air would kill us. It still can.

"It's sealed in here. No air gets in, no air gets out. Until you two broke in. If we don't fix that, we'll all die from poison. I can taste it in the air." He coughed, wiping a bit of spittle from his mouth onto the back of his hand. "You promised to protect us. Can you fix it?"

Without waiting for reply, he continued. "The first wave was just war. All war. Nothing else. And it lasted for four years. By the end of it, everything was either gone or dead. Cities became classified by district and location. There's a city somewhere to the west, I think, in District H, number three-eleven."

"The one north of us is District H, number four-aught-five," James murmured. Cynthia blinked.

City: H-405. C:H405. Chaos. The City of CHAOS. The one to the west was City: H-311. C:H311. The City of HELL. She nearly gasped at the sudden realization.

"It seems chaos follows us everywhere," James mused. She realized that he, too, had understood the connotation. She hadn't seen it before. Perhaps because she'd been too busy attempting to stay alive.

"Four-aught-five is where we came from," Gavin continued, as though this was nothing new to him. "All seven of us, Kyle, Mary, and I lived on the same street. Julie's my sister. The first wave was hard on everyone, and she was a baby for most of that time. I was six when it started. Everyone tried living like it wasn't really happening, but with bombs raining from the sky during every morning, lunch time, and bed time, we didn't really know what to think or do. We were trapped in the city.

"Once you and your other friends got into the city and stole the suits from that tower, the second wave was born. Everyone said that The One got scared of you, that he was afraid of what you could do to him. Everyone said you'd be the end of him and that the world would go back to normal after that. You were our angels. Everyone said so. They said that the god above had sent you to us to help us start over.

"But you left the city behind and went away, and he thought you were still here. He began what he called the eradication, the second wave. The Civil Protection robots began confiscating children from homes, and anyone who resisted was killed. My dad resisted. My mom handed us off." The boy scoffed, looking wounded and teary-eyed. "My own mom gave us away. They still killed her. At least dad tried to stop them. I loved my dad."

Something that could have been distantly associated with regret and sadness plucked at the remains of Cynthia's heart. James still hadn't stirred; to him, it seemed, this was all information, and could very easily be collated as collateral damage.

"The robots took us, every kid in the city, and put us in the tower. We were locked in jail cells, smaller than this room, and there were thirty or forty of us in each room. We didn't get much food, and they didn't have toilets. We couldn't even move around without bumping into each other. Sometimes we had to sleep standing up so that we didn't get dirty from everyone's potty around our feet."

He shivered. "Then there were some people like Big. They were called bargain hunters. A whole bunch of them came in and worked a deal with The One. They gave him a lot of money and each got to pick some of us kids to go with them. Big came one day after we'd been there for a month. We kept track of days with scraps of clothing in a tin can. Every day that passed, someone dropped a small piece of string into the can.

"He came after about a month. He was talking with someone upstairs; I couldn't hear very well, but it sounded like someone who worked for The One. They said something about being a fortress guard. Maybe that's what this is: a guard ship or something. Anyways, then Big came down the stairs, smiling like he'd just gotten a huge meal, and he picked me. He told me to get all my friends and family and go with him. So I got Mary, Kyle, and Julie and went out the door. He looked at the four of us and said he needed three more.

"He looked back inside and saw Jason. He said he needed another boy to help, so Jason was picked. Then he saw Dawn holding Suzie's hand since they were friends and he smiled, saying he wanted pretty girls to come with him. So they came, too. And he had us seven to go with him.

"We were chained together, one after the other, and he led us out the door and into the city. The sky was red. Bombs had stopped falling from the sky. Nothing seemed to move. It was all dead. Just completely dead. We were led into a house nearby and put in the basement. We all gradually fell asleep from…from…"

"Exhaustion?" James volunteered quietly.

"We were too tired to stay awake," Gavin confirmed, nodding slowly. "We were terrified, but we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. When we woke up, we felt…strange. Like we'd become stronger, faster, and maybe a bit smarter or something."

The group was nodding collectively. James inclined his head. "Let me guess: he either injected you with a serum or turned you into semi-electronic cyborgs, right?"

"He put computer chips in our skulls and special slips under the skin of our fingers. However, as long as he's been around and alive, we've never been able to figure out what it means. We've never even tried; it's like that power or whatever we were given refuses to respond to us as long as he's near. It's as if it is blocked or dead."

"Everything's dead," Cynthia muttered.

"We woke up in here and he told us he'd let us live if we did as he said. He'd feed us, clothe us, and give us beds to sleep in if we ran the machines for him. With the computer chips helping us, we could make decisions faster and sort through data easier. It's like we were given more brains, almost a second brain of sorts. We've been here following his orders for almost two years now, just because we were all too scared for ourselves and each other to do anything against him."

"Sometimes he'd give us a little something unpleasant as 'reward' for being his pets," Dawn whispered. Her tone and choice of words made the hair on the back of Cynthia's neck stand straight up, and like the hair, she stood, locking her knees and thumping her hands onto the table.

"What are you talking about?"

Dawn blinked, gazing evenly at the armored woman. Either the child was just playing a very clever and well-executed game, or there was something she hadn't outwardly stated that could be inferred.

"Guess," Dawn challenged. Cynthia grit her teeth together, smashing her fists on the table. Dents formed automatically, but she ignored the damage.

"It's not my job to guess. It's your job to tell me since I'm the adult responsible for protecting you."

The young girl huffed. "What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?"

"You mean, besides the fact that I'm standing in a strange place with which I'm unfamiliar, talking to a girl who doesn't exist yet in my original timeline, the second of only two survivors out of my group of five friends who were all transported here due to a mistake and bad luck, only to discover-"

"He raped me."

Cynthia stopped, blinking rapidly. "Say _what?_"

The way she had said 'what' with a rather breathy inflection and heavy emphasis on the 'h' made Dawn recoil just slightly, as though the entire room was quaking with her disbelief and anger.

"He. Raped. Me."

An electric tension filled the air. Were Cynthia and James in their own timeline under different circumstances, there might have been a stray joke or thought of a joke wafting about, but the sinister truth and the cold fact both smashed heads together in front of them so fiercely that it was all anyone could do to keep breathing. Cynthia grasped the edge of the table for support.

"What do you mean?" she dared ask.

"I mean that he raped me. He took me into his room, in the dark, and shut the door, locking it. He'd then whisper in my ear about how pretty I was." Her voice was dead, a dry rasping husk of what could only be believed to have once been a beautiful voice. "He'd then start to touch my arms and my hands, then my knees and legs. Then he'd lift my shirt and poke my belly, still whispering in my ear.

"He'd rip off my clothes and push me onto the bed, where he'd touch me all over. I hated it. It felt so wrong, so dirty. Everyone who was old enough to understand knew what was happening, but I was terrified he'd kill one or all of us if I said something to anyone, so I stayed quiet. And then he…well…"

She trailed off. Cynthia knew what to think and expect, but never had she expected such words from the girl's mouth:

"He took his filthy little cock and stuffed it inside me."

Cynthia glanced at James, her mouth dry. Judging by the way his hand slipped from the armrest of the chair, he'd been caught completely off-guard by Dawn's statement. Again, tension gripped the room. None of the other four pre-teens seemed fazed by the information; it was as if though someone were merely reading aloud the day's weather from the local newspaper.

"He took my virginity, and every single time it hurt so badly I thought he'd rip me in half. All I kept thinking was how badly I wanted it to end. And now…you two are here."

Dawn finally looked up and actually gazed at the armored warriors before her, eyes swimming with tears. "You two, my heroes, my angels in shining armor, have saved me from him. He's dead now, right?"

They nodded slowly, almost in perfect sync. Dawn let out a short laugh that could have been a giggle. "I'm saved. I can't believe it…I'm _saved_."

She slowly stepped forward to James's chair. He tilted his helmet up to her.

"Thank you," Dawn whispered, leaning down and giving the man a hug. He looked to Cynthia, but never raised a hand to return the hug. The small girl soon released him and stepped to Cynthia, arms wide. Rather than ignoring the open invitation for a hug, she accepted it willingly and tried to convey all her sympathy and sorrow to the child through the simple act. It seemed to work; Dawn stepped away smiling.

"You'll both protect us, right?"

Both armored figures nodded. The child looked overjoyed at the response.

"You're almost like our mom and dad, sort of; except you're stronger and quieter than they were. And probably more ready for battle than they were. You can protect us better than our moms and dads could."

Gavin cleared his throat, eyes shining worriedly. "You, eh…you won't give us away to the Civil Protection, will you?"

Cynthia shook her head. "No. We promised to look after you. All of you. Neptune and I have never gone back on a promise before."

Everyone looked more at ease at the sharing of the news. This was well, for loud purring rounded the corner and approached James's steady, waiting hand, his fingers gently scratching the smiling cat.

"The caracal seems to be taking a liking to this much less oppressive mood," James commented. "Perhaps we should be like the caracal and be glad for this moment of unity between children and adults, for this small group could very well spell the future, the fate of humanity's existence."

"What about you?"

Jason had spoken. He crossed his arms over a dirty orange shirt, his blonde hair tousled and scattered across his head.

"What about us?"

"What do you want?"

"Nothing you can offer."

"We'd still like to know," he pressed.

"What we want…" James paused. He seemed uncertain.

"Home," Cynthia said solemnly. "All we want is to go home to our timeline, to our families and the friends we left behind for this crazy adventure. Home is what we want. Our home. Our timeline. Our lives. All we want is to return to normalcy."

But if there was one thing for certain established in the room that morning, it was that a sense of normalcy would never be associated with James Neutron and Cynthia Vortex.

* * *

**_I'm hoping it wasn't too thick or long for you guys, and that I didn't keep you waiting so long. If I can get to writing faster, I can persuade Seas to help me out and beta some more, since I'll admit it's a very time-consuming chore to read through my drivel and garbage to sort out the information and discrepancies. Thanks so much, Seas, and I love all of you, my gentle snowflakes. I'll see you soon in Chapter 5: A Twisted Mind. :)  
_**


	5. A Twisted Mind

_**A/N: So it's been a month. I think that's about as frequent as my updates will be; I don't currently have any inspiration to keep writing Chapter 9 for this particular fic, and I'm still recovering from a rather heart-breaking split with my ex-girlfriend. Its been almost three weeks and she's already found a new guy, which tells me the past year with her meant almost nothing to her. I'm nothing less than crushed, but I've refused to let it affect the quality of my writing, even if I haven't produced anything since (as Chapter 8 was constructed before the break-up).**  
_

_**On a more positive note, if I can get to writing faster, and y'all can kick my ass in gear a bit, we might be able to persuade my wonderful beta Seas of Sorrow to help edit my chapters faster so I can get updates here sooner. Chances are you won't see an update for Chapter 6 until at least August 22; she's currently on a cross-country trip and is without computer or internet access to aid me until then. But, hey, she tells me every day what a wonderful time she's having and how many new, cool things she gets to see, so I can't say it's terribly disappointing, as my writing can expand and flourish if she feeds me details. It's also thanks to her that this story will be a massive production rather than the original ten to fifteen chapters I'd previously planned out. Now there'll be about twenty to thirty chapters in the middle to add more depth and detail to this piece. I'm excited. And it's a little overwhelming, but I work best under extreme pressure.  
**_

_**Word Count: 9'228 (Chapter 3, MS Word), 5'170 (Chapter 4, MS Word), 7'422 (Chapter 5, MS Word/FFnet).  
**_

_**Once again, I find myself incapable of recalling who has and hasn't reviewed, but nonetheless I appreciate everyone's thoughts and feelings about this story. Reviews and followers make me a very happy kitty, and they push me to continue writing for you guys, even if the story is for my own personal writing development and benefit. Without further ado, happy reading!  
**_

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 5: A Twisted Mind

"Uranus, hand me that spanner and the welding laser."

Cynthia gazed up at James who was hanging upside down in an antigravity sphere as he worked on repairing the gaping hole they'd created in the Titan's neck to force entry. He had pinned a large section of reinforced titanium over the hole and had hand-tightened several bolts into place, but an effective seal would only be gleaned if he were to completely lock them down.

She reached for the wrench and a machine that looked like a gun attached to a miniature oxygen tank, lobbing them both rather forcefully into the air. The instant they passed into the field, they slowed and then stopped their movements so as not to project out the opposite end of the field into the ceiling. An impact of that force wouldn't be dangerous to either tool, but if the gun and its tank were to fall back to the floor, the pressurized acetylene would react like a bomb and would probably kill one, if not both of them.

James began to tighten the bolts into place as Cynthia rigged up the next oblong piece to hang in a pulley system. They had a system: she'd raise the part, he'd set it in place, she'd throw him the tools, he'd tighten it down, repeat. Simple and effective.

He switched to the welding laser and she heard him issue a soft command to his helmet. She repeated the command and watched as her visor became heavily tinted and dulled the bright, white-blue light down to that of a non-blinding orange, which consequently turned the rest of her vision black. The isolation of that one pinpoint of light moving its way rapidly around the square of titanium was soothing, despite the acrid smell she was certain filled the air around them. It had been wise of them to ask that the children stay away from the work place; the fumes were most likely toxic to unshielded lungs.

"Next piece," James called.

Cynthia let herself hang on the pulley cable, lugging the large sheet of metal up to the genius above her. Titanium weighed very little, and with the added muscle she and her companion had gained over the three years defending themselves on the godforsaken planet, it was little more than featherweight climbing the winch.

"Perfect. Now, toss me fourteen bolts. I've already got the drill."

The red drill was indeed secured to his right hip, upside down same as his body, one of his special super-powerful energy batteries converted to run it. He aligned it with the first bolt and sunk it to the crown with a flick of the trigger. Thirteen successive bolts later and the sheet was tacked into place. Again, he grabbed for the laser, and again Cynthia's vision dimmed to near-blackness. He finished and looked up at Cynthia standing below him.

"I think we're done here. I'm coming down."

She stepped aside as he tapped the bubble directly over his head. It descended to the floor as he turned himself upright, then popped on impact. The welding laser clattered to the ground and the tank began to roll away.

James returned the tools to the rack he'd found them on, but placed the welding laser into a small hole on the front side of his waistband. Cynthia presumed it was his hypercube, the only tool they'd managed to salvage from the wreck and keep with them.

Laser secured and tools returned James gave Cynthia a curt nod before turning and heading down the hallway beside her.

"Where are you going now?"

He stopped just short of the stairwell at the other end of the hall and twitched his helmet slightly over his shoulder. The light from overhead glinted gently and gave him a sort of artificial ethereal glow, almost as though he had some sort of god-like power in his possession.

"I'm going to the arena downstairs. I was hoping to spar."

Cynthia gazed dumbly at him for a moment. "Sparring without an opponent?"

He departed down the stairs without looking back or saying another word. Cynthia took that to be an open, if cryptic, invitation to spar with him below. She drew her blade and held it aloft before attempting to descend the stairs, not knowing whether or not he would commence attacking before she was ready.

But no such thing happened. She was able to descend the stairs and step into the room across from James, her blade open and ready. He was facing away from her, hands empty, posture relatively relaxed given his normal tension.

"So you intend to spar?"

It was more a rhetorical question than anything, but Cynthia still replied with a "yes" nonetheless.

"Be warned: we will take turns attacking and defending, but I refuse to go lightly on you."

His words had a chilling, menacing feel to them, as though James had been replaced by a far more sinister entity that was using him as a ferry to do its bidding. Cynthia struggled for a few short seconds to mentally force the hairs standing up on the back of her neck to lie back down. Her scalp itched and her muscles tensed, prepared for an attack.

"You can start on the offensive," he said.

Was it a trap? James was an expert at deception and trickery while fighting an opponent. He was also a master at foresight. Fighting him would be like a mouse attempting to attack and bring down a rottweiler. Then again, Cynthia had the luck to be on his side rather than against him. For them to be sparring together was merely a refinement of their techniques and reflexes, as well as an effective destressing mechanism.

Right?

"Whenever you're ready," he called gently. Cynthia was uneasy having him as her opponent, as he was a formidable foe at best and also held the role of her only companion and her one hope for salvation. Then again, perhaps if she could leave some sort of bruise or scrape on him, he'd believe her worthy of handling combat situations rather than sitting around watching him.

With renewed confidence and an old determination called rivalry she'd not felt in a long time, she drove wordlessly forward with only the desire to continue the decade-old game they'd played in trying to one-up the other. This time, Cynthia Vortex would win. She would claim victory over the critically-acclaimed genius James Neutron. He would rue the day he chose to pick a fight with her.

She slashed her arm violently from her lower-right to her upper-left as she ran at him, her blade's progressive extension technology creating a wide green arc that ripped at the air directly behind James's back, failing to connect with his figure. Her next blow, a sidelong cut from the left across to the right, was intercepted directly in front of her nose, his blue blade's edge braced at the absolute tip of her own blade, a perfect perpendicular intersection that resulted in a mildly concussive pulse and a few rogue sparks. She realized he was facing her in the half-second it took her to plant her foot and stop her momentum, something which kept her from impaling herself into his blade as it pointed outstretched at her right lung.

"When executing an uppercut slash while running, it's best to commit early, attack in the middle, and follow-through later, rather than doing everything early. If you'd attacked a bit later and then followed through by spinning with the blade and twirling in a half-circle, you'd have slashed at me, moved past me, and would be ready for my next attack or block. You swung too early and fought the blade."

She pulled her blade back toward herself and attempted to backhand-slash him from her lower-left to her upper-right. She fully expected another hard block, so she was very thoroughly surprised when he lifted her blade with his own, directing the blow into a sloppy vertical arc that left her to spin clumsily and lose her footing. She landed on her butt and tilted her helmet back to see the blue blade pointed calmly at her visor.

"A valiant effort at close combat, but also an easy move to predict and block; when you are blocking or attacking up-close, keep your movements small and precise; don't let too much of your body hang out too far one way or the other unless you can combat the offset with a block or counterattack. Also, when attacking, try using jabs and thrusts rather than swipes when near the opponent; jabs are harder to block and can't be as easily redirected as a swipe."

She lifted her entire body in one fluid movement onto her feet, pointing her blade back at James as he pointed his own at her. She stepped forward while flicking her blade against his with her wrist, a brutally-accurate and powerful twist that smacked his blade into the air away from her trajectory. Before she could even begin her next attack, she was clouted on the left shoulder and her knees buckled from the force. Again, the blue blade pointed at her face.

"I put a force field around my blade so that you won't get injured or slashed. When knocking an opponent's blade away from them, be ready for a return lunge; if you don't anticipate that I can use the weight of the blade and the rubber-band muscles in my forearm and wrist to lash the blade back down out of the air, you lose the fight. Also, when creating a cruel flick like that, it's only as effective as the equally-quick overhand blade reversal that should follow as you drag your arm down; the blade already has momentum and spin, so all you need do is rotate your hand over the blade to hold it backwards, then bring your arm down to your side in a small arc. It's more than enough to do some severe, if not lethal, damage to your opponent."

She stood, slowly, soaking in every word he spoke and hating every bit of it. He was so smug, so precise, and so correct in everything he said and did. And she hated the fact that he knew exactly how to deflect and counter her blows without even giving an opportunity for attack. She ground her teeth together.

"Anger clouds judgment and thus inhibits technique. Clear your mind and focus on one thing: fluidity. Swordplay is all about fluidity and grace. If you'd taken ballet when you were younger rather than t'ai chi or jiu jitsu, this would be much easier for you."

There it was. The reprimand for her actions and just another reason he was right. Rage overtook her vision and she smacked his blade harshly from her field of vision. Using her left arm as a block, she held his blade from pursuing a counterattack and brought her own blade up straight for his helmet. Her wrist flicked and the blade whipped through the air, directly for its mark.

It never came close to landing. It was a remarkably simple act coming from James. He used his own blade as a teeter-totter, with her arms as the weights and his hand as the fulcrum. The force from her blade arm spun his blade over his open hand and knocked her blocking arm across the gap, smacking her arms together and jarring her blade into a disoriented wobble that went way over his head. Before Cynthia even had a moment to realize what he'd done, he'd caught his blade with the opposite hand and had pointed it into the air, directly in the path of her swinging arm, and a deft flick sent her own blade flying much like a crude pinwheel across the arena and into the wall behind him. With his open arm, he blocked her swinging arm and stepped underneath her descending blocking arm, catching her moving arm in a lock and using her blocking arm as a pivot; he effectively spun her over his shoulders and pinned her to the floor, one arm trapped uselessly under her chest, the other pinned to her upper back in a painful bend. She felt a knee drive its way into her lower back, right above the swell of her butt, and the foot on that leg landed between her thighs rather close to her crotch, his shin acting as a weight and lock over her hips and pelvis. She found herself entirely unable to move or defend herself, as her legs had been immobilized to a point where she could not even kick him from behind. He'd incapacitated her in a quick, effortless fashion and hadn't even swung his blade at her to do anything but disarm her.

"Fluidity, Cynthia. You have to have several different courses of action planned out at one time, and at the slightest shift in your opponent's movements you should be able to change your tactics mid-stream to counteract their methods or create and utilize an advantage in their guard and their weaknesses. Everyone, everything, is physically vulnerable at some one spot on their person. Humans are usually vulnerable from behind, as we can't see anything more than the space from our left hand to our right hand. Fluidity removes that barrier, or at least squashes it, by allowing you to change your plan and redirect or block attacks while delivering blows; thus, even if you can't see behind you, if you are fluid enough to have a presumed space where an attacker may be located or where an attack may come from, you can dodge or counteract without breaking stride. It's what makes me unpredictable in a battle. It's why I haven't died yet: I constantly change my next move to best execute the ideal outcome of the fight."

His weight to her pelvis increased slightly, but he leapt neatly from her back and she felt her blade skid along the floor into her foot. She wedged her arms out and stretched them out; attempting to relieve the muscle strain they'd endured, no matter the brevity. She grasped her blade and stood up, attempting to stifle her anger and pain under a mask of indifference. She needed to do as he said and try to focus on the task at hand before letting her emotions take control.

"Yes, chain your emotions to the wall. Let them hang there until you've got your opponent right where it suits you best. Then, let your turmoil run wild and free as you vanquish them. It's about control and fluidity, Cynthia. Precision."

She gazed at him through her visor. She whispered the commands for the visor's auto-lock and movement tracking functions, two things which would keep James and his movements in view and under scrutiny at all times. Even if she couldn't best him, she was determined to learn what she could. She knew he could be quite the teacher if anybody wished to truly listen to what he had to say, and she felt that he was attempting to give her a vital lesson in survival. She retightened her grip on her blade.

"When you're ready."

She lunged at him again, but this time she focused on streamlining her body with the blade pointed directly in front of her. Sensing a block in progress, she redirected her entire force at the very last second to spin to the left, her blade whipping around in the air. She ducked, lancing one leg out as she spun on the side of her thigh, and rotated her body over her spinning butt, still looping the blade through the air. With a harsh downward flick from her wrist and a straightened thigh, she not only felt her foot connect with James's leg, but she managed to hook it within the crook of her knee and drag it down underneath her as her knee became a pillar on which her body stood. Her other leg planted behind her knee and both lifted simultaneously, her knee uncoiling, her blade arm arcing around to the right over her head as she stood. Her arm came down and her knees dropped, her movements stopping just as her blade tip reached the fabric covering James's trachea.

And, incredibly, his blade was still blocking her own mere hairs from striking his throat. With an animalistic cry, Cynthia smashed her blade against his and blasted the hilt from his hand, sending it skittering across the floor as she planted her own blade just to the side of his outstretched neck.

"I win," she said quietly. After a mere three seconds with her knee dug into his chest, she yanked her blade from the floor and stood, offering the man her hand. He seemed to gaze at it behind his visor, but pushed it away and dusted himself off, moving for his blade. After reclaiming his weapon, he tapped it incessantly against his helmet, seemingly contemplative.

"Impressive for you to develop such a rigorous move without the proper development or technique though it was, admittedly, very rough and easily diverted, but for a first-attempt...not bad at all."

Cynthia almost couldn't believe her ears. James had paid her what had to have been his first-ever compliment. On top of that, he'd basically said she'd reached a great accomplishment considering it was only her first time in a heated combat situation, even if only simulated.

"Are you ready?"

Ready? For what?

Then the answer met her: his turn.

No doubt, he'd do just the same as she had: attack until he'd broken her and claimed victory. Cynthia had no intention of letting that happen, no matter how outmatched she happened to be.

"I warn you, I refuse to stop or go easy just because you're inexperienced. I'll be putting every effort I do in a real combat situation into this training session, as this is just as much for my own benefit as it is for yours. Are you ready for this?"

She tipped her helmet forward for a second before righting it.

"Be prepared," he cautioned.

Suddenly, he was rushing toward her, but as she focused on the movement detector, she predicted that his trajectory would lead him slightly to her left. She readied her arm to block his approaching blow.

Her anticipation was totally off-base; without so much as a clue or forewarning, he stepped with his right foot and propelled himself toward her right side. His fluidity that he had talked about consistently had thrown off her predicted trajectory and had altered his attack strategy and, thus, shattered her line of defensive reaction.

She scrambled her brain in a short half-second to slide her blade arm slightly back toward her right, but couldn't afford to do anything more drastic; he was headed at lightning speed straight for her figure but hadn't given any indication of any planned attack or series of attacks. Everything she'd seen of him had left her without any clue of his next move. It was like playing chess with a computer.

Again, he altered his path by squaring his left foot off from the ground. She saw the blade as it drove straight for her stomach and let her own hang directly across her intestines, ready for an attack that would never come. He flew straight at her and directed his blade upward, forcing her to twist her hand and pivot her blade into his line of motion. While she succeeded in blocking the thrust, he also surprised her with yet another diversion; he collapsed his wrist and slid the point of his blade off hers, placing the flat of his blade against the edge of hers. With his momentum and what she could only guess as a ludicrous manipulation of his muscles and trajectory physics, he flicked his wrist backwards and retracted his arm, something which blasted her to the floor as though she'd been walloped in the face by a battering ram. She crashed to the ground and slid on her armor, sparks flying left and right as she desperately attempted to soothe her aching head (which had collided with the ground) and regain her sense of location. In a lucky twist of fate, she'd brought her arm up to try and direct her momentum and alter her course of direction and inadvertently blocked a vicious overhand slash from her attacker. She continued to slide backwards even as he hacked away, raining blow after blow onto her blade, apparently still running to match her pace. She couldn't even dig a boot into the ground without sparks flying and rubber squealing, not to mention that another blow would just set her in motion once again, two or three or even four blades slamming again and again in a rhythm much like a pinwheel. She wondered if she'd ever stop when her head once again collided with something solid, this time the wall. She slid up the wall and attempted to regain her balance and fight against him, but another blow pinned her violently against the steel behind her. She watched his blue blades rip the air in half, sizzling as they moved, smoke and steam flying from their heated edges, smashing again and again into her own blade as it hung, somehow still in front of her face, blocking their advances on her skull.

She felt it smash against her stomach, sending her to her knees, the blade once again blocking a harsh blow that could have cracked against the back of her skull. Another whack to the gut, then a blow like a sledgehammer to her arm and she swore she could feel her bones splintering as he smacked the blades again against hers. He cracked them against the inside of her left thigh and she finally cried out, falling atop the injured leg, watching in both fascination and horror as his blades, two of them per hand, made a scissoring motion at her own blade and wrenched it from her hand as easily as plucking a flower petal from its host. One of his blades reunited with its original and the remaining blades gathered in James's right hand, pointed straight at Cynthia, not even three inches from the reflective face of her visor.

She couldn't tell what expression he held on his face, but she knew she was scared of him. He'd become a monster. He hadn't stopped attacking her until he'd finally smacked her blade from her hands and pinned her to the floor and the wall. Then again, he'd said he wouldn't stop until she was incapacitated. It had been his warning, and she'd agreed.

She still feared him and the power he had.

"You're insane."

The blades didn't budge.

"That's reasonably likely."

She gulped.

"I thought this was supposed to be sparring, training for us."

The blades glowed brighter if anything.

"This was to teach you the reality of our situation. This was to show you what can and will happen to you if you don't get better at wielding your weapon."

His words were cold, deathly so, and held no sense of care, concern, or regard. He wasn't the caring young man he'd been mere moments before; he had become a statue, a cold, unfeeling entity capable of obliterating her from existence if he so chose to do so.

"James…what happened?"

He chuckled lowly, though the mirthless notes made Cynthia shiver.

"I learned. I changed. And I survived."

The statements crushed her heart, making her feel as though she was incapable of even staying alive for more than a few moments on her own. Not only that, but he'd also insinuated his ability to kill her and the ease with which it could be done. She felt cold, alone, and fearful for her life.

"You're not the Jimmy I remember."

He stood, stiff as a statue, his blades still pointed at her throat. Cynthia had never felt so afraid of him before in her life, not even when he'd become a savage monster due to his experimentation with genetic mutations. He'd never expressed such unbridled rage before, not even after severe provocation from anyone, but there he stood, pointing three glowing blue blades of pure energy directly at her trachea. She swallowed thickly and remained on the floor, one leg tucked beneath her, the other splayed to the side. She could feel the incessant pricking of blood cells attempting to work through her restricted arteries as she sat splayed uncomfortably over the gleaming floor, but fear riveted her in place. She couldn't see through his blackened visor, couldn't see a single trace of his face or the blue eyes she knew would be glowing within.

It was frightening. Her blood ran icy cold at the idea that he could kill her without so much as a second thought.

And yet, as terrified as she was, he lowered his weapons. Her ears had finally focused on something other than her own frantic breathing, and over the link she could hear his slow, rhythmic respirations. They served to calm her down and reduce the sense of imminent danger she felt.

"I'm no longer Jimmy."

He retracted his blades and synthesized the hilts together. His posture remained unchanged; he still had his right foot planted toward her, his left foot pointing off at the wall forming a T-shaped stance. His knees were slightly bent, spine straight, shoulders rolled back, head held defiantly upright. He looked regal, especially from her vantage point.

"You're still Jimmy. He's in there somewhere. I know he is. James may work alone, but Jimmy…Jimmy keeps me around for company, for stability."

At this, he turned and attempted to leave the arena, heading for the stairs that would lead him back to the control room. Cynthia stood, her legs tingling and itching with newfound circulation, but she ignored her lack of muscular coordination so she could instead sprint after him. Not knowing what to do once she caught the man as he walked silently to the stairwell, she dove at his waist and caught him rather roughly, causing him to spin around as they both careened through the air and struck the floor with a violent thud and some metallic scraping noises.

Cynthia wasted no time in disentangling herself from his lower half and dug her knees into his inner thighs as he attempted to right himself. He pushed up onto his elbows, but two quick successive strikes from her fists set him back against the floor once again. She smacked one of her open hands against his chest, leaning her upper body against it to pin him to the floor. Her other hand curled into a fist, and before either of his hands could reach up and stop her, she hauled off and crashed it against the side of his helmet so hard she felt her knuckles split, so hard she heard the metallic _clang_ echo around the room as she followed through her swing and nearly lost balance from the impact. His head snapped to the side so quickly she feared she'd broken his neck, but after planting her bruised fist against the ground by his skull, he turned his head and pointed the visor directly at her face. She took a big gulp of air amid her panting and set off yelling.

"Don't you dare turn and walk away, James! Don't you dare! You need me and I need you! We can't survive if we can't work together you numbskull!"

She could feel the fire blazing in her eyes and with her aching hand; she reached behind her helmet and disengaged the pressure-lock latch. With a hiss and a tug at the base of the helmet, it sailed across the room and clattered noisily against the ground. For the first time in more than two straight years, her hair spewed out behind her head, wavy and blonde, long and clean from being pressure-sealed within the helmet for so long. Her pale face finally felt the cool, raw air that it'd been deprived of for so long, and she could immediately feel wind burn forming on her cheeks coupled with skin that began to peel from lack of exposure to the elements. But her eyes remained as unchanged as the day they'd been sealed into the helmet: they blazed and scorched with a fiery rage so intense and passionate it likely could have set fire to the surroundings if properly harnessed.

"I don't care how long we've been stuck in this hell. I don't care how long our friends have been dead because of this adventure-gone-wrong. I don't even care that I haven't seen my family, my other friends, my _life _in more than three years, James. I don't _care!_ All I know is that you and I are stuck here in this…this…_situation_…this _circumstance _that we never asked for! And goddamn it all, as long as I have to be stuck here with_ you_, I'm gonna make sure I'm stuck _to _you at all times because you're our only hope of survival, you idiot! You and I both know you're smart enough to work out a solution to this chaos and I'm not! But Jesus, Jimmy, you and I both also know that _I'm the only thing keeping you sane right now!_"

She moved to smash her fist against his face again, but this time he raised his hand and deflected the blow into the floor. She ground her teeth to prevent from crying out at the pain, noting that her suit was already beginning to repair the damage automatically.

"You're not the Jimmy I used to know. The Jimmy I used to know cared for everyone around him. Safety and fun were his two primary goals whenever his friends and family became involved in his scientific adventures. _He _looked out for everyone. _He _saved all the lives he could. _He _wasn't so cold and isolated to the girl he supposedly loves!"

The fire died a little, but sadness took place of the boiling rage and leveled her eyes to a glowing potpourri of intertwined emotions indistinguishable from one another.

"Why, Jimmy? When did you become James? When did you change? Why have you been driven so far? Why are you so isolated from me? Why? _Why?!_"

She let the tears fall, unobstructed, from her eyes and down her chapped, pale face. She felt the cold, salted tracks they left behind as they glistened and blistered in the wind, the teardrops running off her face and striking the chin piece of his helmet gently.

"I can't take this, Jimmy," she whispered as she lowered her forehead to the darkened visor. "This isn't some child's game anymore. This isn't a façade I can keep up anymore. I need you, Jimmy Neutron. I _need _you. I need you and that big brain of yours to get us out of here. I need us to go home and see our families again. I need our friends to be alive again. But most importantly, I need to feel loved and respected again, Jimmy. I need you to love me…even if you can't or forgot how to."

She had clenched both of her hands onto the fabric between the cracks of the body armor, tugging and stretching it in her hands, her knees still digging into his thighs. She only managed to keep her gently-quaking body poised atop his for a brief moment longer, as her knees gave out and her hands loosened, and she collapsed onto him, her legs between his, her torso against his, her hands atop his shoulders, her face gazing sorrowfully at the visor.

"I need you, Jimmy Neutron. And you need me. And you know it."

She let her forehead drop and touch the cold floor for a moment as the weight of her confession sunk into them both before she tiredly rolled off him and onto her back. She gazed blearily at the ceiling, unable to summon the energy to move her limbs to even attempt to recover the helmet lying in the middle of the floor, let alone make her way downstairs to the sleeping chambers and turn in for the night. She let her breaths come slowly and deeply as she felt her eyelids shutting tiredly.

A strong pair of arms scooped her under the crooks of her knees and behind her shoulders, lifting her lightly from the floor. With a relatively-level gait, she felt the arms carry her from the floor and down the stairs, down through the control room and down a hallway to the sleeping quarters. She felt the bed rise up to greet her backside and she shivered a bit. At once, a comforter was drawn over her armored body and she drearily felt a figure crawl onto the mattress beside her.

A gentle depressurizing hiss puffed from her side.

A light suction noise.

A shadow across her face.

Breath tickling her nose.

"I…I need you too, Cindy Vortex. You're the cure to…to my insanity. Please…please, don't ever…don't ever leave me…please…"

A single drop of water on her cheek.

Gentle pressure on her lips for a brief second.

Utter blackness.

"_Now what?"_

_Sheen had posed the question somewhat rhetorically and somewhat annoyingly to the group as they finally reached the edge of the dome. The other four members neglected an answer, as Carl and Libby were busy watching Cindy and Jimmy as they gazed curiously at the glass._

"_It's gotta be at least two feet thick, probably pressurized, and with higher security protocols than I've ever heard of," Jimmy mused, muttering under his breath. "Getting in is the easy part; it's staying alive that gets tough…"_

"_What's the plan?" Cindy queried eagerly. _

_Jimmy pressed his open-palmed hand against the cool glass. He coughed again, using the back of his other hand to re-wipe the cut that still refused to clot shut. He was so direly focused on the glass in front of him he looked as though he'd become a statue. _

_But the gears were turning, whirring on overdrive behind his eyes. Cindy and Libby could both see it, even if Carl and Sheen were more oblivious._

_Without warning, Jimmy flicked his left wrist toward the glass and depressed a button the size of a grain of rice. The watch beeped and unleashed a powerful, concentrated laser beam that struck the glass at its base and immediately began cutting its way through to the inside. Everyone in the posse, intelligent or not, knew that two feet of simple glass, even if carbon-reinforced, served no challenge to Jimmy's laser. They'd watched him use it to cut a beautifully-round cylindrical tunnel through thirty straight feet of lead-reinforced steel just to escape from the clutches of Maurice the Maniacal, a strange little man with no social life, bad odor, and a slight lisp; a man only capable of forcing others to do his evil bidding, his efforts of which often ended up foiled and ruined by the hands of his victims. Jimmy was no exception, and certainly offered a significant advantage over his competition for his brains and his technology._

_With a final light _ping _and another press of the button, the laser ceased fire and the glass partition before them had a solid cylinder isolated from its surroundings._

"_Great, Jim, but now that you cut the glass, how do we get through?"_

_Without so much as a moment of hesitation, Jimmy whipped what looked to be a pencil from his hypercube and depressed the eraser. The tip exploded outward with a light _pop_ and obliterated the glass obstacle before them on impact. Without waiting for the smoke to clear, Jimmy strode through the hole and into the city. _

"_If someone around here is smart enough to know how to seal a city within a bubble during an age of nuclear war, then they must surely have enough intelligence to direct me to an interuniversal warp transporter. Though, the odds of getting back to our own home are about five to one, even if I build it, and that's if we're only one U out…at five U, it could be nearly impossible to predict the repercussions we'd face."_

"_Uh, Jimmy, I don't want to stop you from doing your science-thingy, but we've got company," Sheen pointed out. The genius came far enough out of his mental quarrel to realize that his friend was very much right._

_Advancing on the group of five looked to be three twelve-foot-tall golems made of scrap metal and glowing, radioactive glass chambers filled with multicolored gases. On the top of their heads and shoulders rested two lights with a startling familiar color coordination of red and blue. Those same lights were also present on the shoulders of the walking hunks of metal and they blinked rapidly, in a matter that was almost a personification of disdain. Jimmy's brows furrowed; police weren't exactly a helpful sight to him._

"_Perfect," he replied sarcastically. After another half second of thought, he immediately perked up and grinned in an almost evil fashion. "Just perfect."_

_Cindy was the only one to have paid close enough attention to the genius to have detected the change in his demeanor and tone. She knew him better than he even knew himself, and he was often prone to giving away small, slight visual and verbal cues as to his state of mind or intentions when in the midst of a plan. She stepped closer to him and leaned toward his ear._

"_What's so perfect about cyborg cops?"_

_He leaned back and put his lips to her own ear, something which made her knees weak and her heart pound erratically._

"_Those cops must report to someone or something. Maybe they can take us to whoever built this dome. Maybe I can get some ideas about how to get away from this place."_

_Cindy subconsciously caught everything he said and stored it away in her brain, but her foremost thought was of how lovely his breath smelled and how close he'd been to her face. Peculiar, the emotion one could feel even in the heat of the moment. Had the night before addled her brain?_

"_CITIZENS," the lead golem called. "YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR DEFACING THE PROPERTY OF THIS, OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY."_

_Jimmy looked around, still grinning wildly. "Your beautiful city? This side of town looks like a decrepit slum, suitable for only the lowest forms of humanity."_

"_DO YOU QUESTION OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY?"_

"_I do, actually. I also question who it is that leads this city."_

_The golem paused in stride, standing three feet from Jimmy. Carl cowered visibly; Sheen's knees began to shake. Libby maintained a brave front, but only Jimmy and Cindy were totally unperturbed by the hulking metal monster before them._

"_WE DO NOT TOLERATE THOSE WHO QUESTION OUR VALIANT LEADER. YOU, CITIZEN, WILL BE BROUGHT BEFORE OUR VALIANT LEADER FOR QUESTIONING."_

_Jimmy laughed. "Oh, will I?"_

_The golem stepped forward and latched its hand around Jimmy's torso, hoisting him easily into the air. Its other hand grabbed at Cindy, who shouted in protest and attempted to fight the robot's grip on her body._

"_WE, THE CIVIL PROTECTION FORCE, DO NOT TOLERATE CITIZENS IN CONTEMPT OF THE CITY'S MORALS AND VALUES. WE STRIVE TO ELIMINATE THREATENING CITIZENS AND PROVIDE A SAFE, COMFORTABLE LIVING ENVIRONMENT FOR HUMANITY."_

"_Is that why this place looks like a shithole?" Cindy grunted, still straining against the unrelenting grip of the golem._

"_WE DO NOT TOLERATE SUCH ACTS OF INSOLENCE AGAINST THIS CITY. YOU WILL ALSO BE TAKEN DIRECTLY TO OUR VALIANT LEADER."_

_Jimmy grinned inwardly. Without even so much as a cue or instruction on his part, Cindy had complied with his unknown, unspoken plan and had placed herself in his proverbial boat. _

_The golem moved surprisingly quickly across the ground, thundering down the street with heavy, grinding steps that let sparks fly and skid marks form. It wasn't anything remotely comfortable, and certainly not the method of transport Jimmy would have devised, but it was quick and it was direct, and so he remained silent and went along with the ride. Had he wanted to, he could have directed his laser watch at the robot's hand and sliced it clean off, followed by Cindy's grasper and then the looming head with the metallic voice that boomed so loudly. But in doing so, Jimmy also knew that more agents of this so-called Civil Protection would show up, and anything more than three or four at a time could prove to be a bit beyond his limits._

_The bots stopped at a large gate, where they had to buzz into an intercom to get entrance. The gate didn't move, but it shimmered softly at the golems' presence, and they stepped straight through. Jimmy could only assume it was a particle field and that an activation keyword or heat signature would temporarily dissimilate the charged objects within the field. This also meant that the gate was charged and quite possibly magnetic, but that the robots were neutral and most likely not magnetic. Jimmy was also surprised that his clothing (and the hypercube stowed in his pants pocket) had made it through the field, as they held static electricity. Perhaps it was just a generic phasing field that allowed objects to pass through when granted permission by the molecules within._

_Neither theory could be tested or confirmed in the short time it took the golems to enter the large set of double-doors before them. Immediately the red sunshine from outside turned to dusk, for the building they'd entered held no windows and no lights. It was black as night and held a similarly sinister air of foreboding. Jimmy heard the other two golems stop moving while his kept striding forward. He knew Cindy was just as confused as he was._

_Their golem buzzed loudly, and two sets of clanking footsteps started up behind them again. They felt like they were descending down a flight of stairs, though how anyone or anything could be built to withstand such enormous weight of the metal creatures, Jimmy didn't know or care to consider._

_A steel grating noise sounded, and Jimmy felt himself heaved through the air. He struck the ground on his stomach and thankfully had the sense to put his hands out before him to keep his head up. He rolled over and stretched his arms out blindly; luckily for him, Cindy had been given the same trajectory, and from her cry of surprise, he confirmed that she was headed his way, and with an 'oof!' and a mild case of physical pain in his torso, he caught her and held her in his arms._

"_Are you okay?" he whispered. He felt her nod into his chest. _

_He stood up, pulling her up with him, and led her away from their landing spot. It was fortunate that he did so, for a screaming Sheen and a shrieking Libby landed unceremoniously where they'd been seconds before. Even in the darkness, Jimmy had an idea of where he and his friends were in relation to one another. He also guessed that the door he'd come through was about ten feet from where he stood, at least in a diagonal trajectory. There was also most likely a wall to his left and another wall much farther off to his right. How deep the chamber went wasn't clear, as he couldn't accurately opinionate an echo from the wriggling chaos that Sheen and Libby were struggling with._

_They both yelped in pain as Carl landed on top of them, forming a large heap of tangled limbs and bodies. Over the cacophony of the struggling friends came the grating steel noise again, the presumed sound of a door closing. A second grinding noise was heard from the same location, which Jimmy could only interpret to be some sort of lock device. _

"_YOU, CITIZENS, WILL BE HELD HERE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. YOU ARE IN CONTEMPT OF THIS, OUR BEAUTIFUL CITY, AND WILL BE PRESENTED BEFORE OUR VALIANT LEADER FOR EVALUATION."_

_The robots thudded their way back up the stairs and Jimmy blinked in the darkness. Without so much as a forewarning, he began to chuckle. He soon began laughing. And the laughter further morphed into cold, mirthless cackling as he stood, holding the warm body of a blonde-haired girl in his arms, trapped like a rat in a cage._

* * *

**_This is turning out to be quite the long story. I have as of this time completed the first written draft of Chapter 8, and it is the longest chapter I've ever written, weighing in at almost 13'000 words. That's a staggering amount of writing when you consider most authors here only write between 1'000 and 3'000 words per chapter. But that's a long time from being posted here, unless I can get some more help from Seas. Anywhozles, thoughts? Feelings? Go ahead and guess what the pressure was; I'll not reveal anything here. Please take note of the name designations I've tried to incorporate, and realize there's a reason for the, ehm...specificity, shall we say. I love all you guys, and I hope to see you soon in Chapter 6: Challenge Accepted. ~Kyttin _**


	6. Challenge Accepted

_**A/N: My gentle snowflakes! I do heartily apologize for my absence. It has been several months since I last updated this story, and I must apologize until I turn blue to make up for this atrocity. My only excuses are that I lost my beta to technical difficulties and that I lost my sense of time and writing flow until recently. I've since completed the body for Chapter 11, which requires a memory to flesh it out a bit more. Again, I apologize for my absence, but rather than bore you with a sob story, I'll let you get right back into...**  
_

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 6: Challenge Accepted

_Schoop. Click. Tssk._

Cynthia sat bolt-upright, head flicking left and right in the darkness, unable to see a single thing. With one barely-functioning portion of her still-groggy brain, she realized she lacked her helmet, and consciously recognized she was not alone in the room. She reached for her blade and realized with striking discomfort and a mild sense of fear that it wasn't fastened to her hip where it should have been. Only the scuff of the mattress against her gloved fingers met her touch, and she had to grope about for the nonexistent hilt with her hand while impulsively standing quite suddenly, eyes still not adjusted to the blackness. Her free hand curled into a fist and drew up before her chest, an angular block for an unseen foe if an attack was to be launched.

"Cynthia, are you awake?"

She paused. The voice had been barely above a whisper, but she knew that intonation better than most people knew how many minutes were in an hour.

"James?"

"It's just me."

She sighed. "No attack?"

"None." He sounded almost amused, even with only a whisper. "I just found it rather imprudent to leave my helmet off for longer than it took to sleep."

"You slept with your helmet off."

She hadn't asked a question, but he responded with a sigh nonetheless. "For the first time in more than three years, yes. After closing the hole in the Titan's neck, I deemed the air comfortable and clean, enough so I won't lose my stamina or spirit if I inhale it raw. However, I can only take so much; my lungs burned when I awoke from the chill of this natural air."

Indeed, Cynthia felt that her chest was hot and scratchy from within. She steadied her breathing and sat back down on the bed, her legs suddenly feeling weak. It had definitely been the deepest sleep she'd gotten since she'd donned the suit, but it didn't make her feel any better about sleeping with her guard down.

"Here."

A round object was thrust into her hands. She touched its surface and realized it was her own protective helmet when she felt the V-formation horns. She slipped it over her head and pushed the clasp shut, sealing the memory foam onto her head with the same three signature noises that James's own had made. She felt somewhat saddened that she'd put the helmet back on and must have let out a somewhat audible noise, for James cleared his throat.

"I'm headed up to spar."

She paused, asking her helmet to display night-vision as she attempted to glean a sense of location. The somewhat familiar room greeted her with the sight of the numerous bunk beds, a couple of which seemed to possess occupants. It somewhat surprised her that the children hadn't said much, other than the meeting the previous morning. They were far more autonomous than she could remember being at their age.

"Would you like a partner?"

Part of her wished to accompany him, if not to spar, then at least to watch and hopefully learn. Part of her, however, never wished to be staring down the other end of his blade ever again. It had been a deeply terrifying experience, and certainly not one she was eager to repeat so soon, if at all. But, if fate chose to pit her against the man, she would prove her damnedest to be the most difficult adversary he'd ever have to face.

"Rather than repeating yesterday's…attacking…I'd like to teach you a thing or two today, if you're willing."

She deliberated for a moment. If teaching her involved anything remotely like the day before, she'd undoubtedly get slammed to the floor, a consequence she was loathe to repeat. She hated feeling defenseless and trapped, but he'd successfully outmaneuvered her and brought her to her knees before his power and technique. However, such power was most definitely a welcome aid as a partner, and was a lethal weapon she'd be very appreciative to have on her side of the battlefield.

He moved to leave the room as she stood up. "I'd like to learn," she called hesitantly.

He paused.

"I think…I think it would benefit us both…if I were to learn something from you, especially about combat. It's…it's been a while since I last took a karate or jiu jitsu class."

Somewhere deep in her memory, she could almost picture him laughing at her. Never before had she had to bow before James and ask for his help, let alone his guidance and training.

"I'm willing to teach you," was the gentle reply. It was so soft, so sincere, and so much like the old Jimmy she'd lost somewhere in the translation that her legs almost gave out. They both knew she'd cracked his shell, even if only enough to see a glimpse of the person she used to know. It was a start.

She followed his brisk pace back through the control hall, where he was intercepted by Alpha.

"Hey, Neptune, where are you and Uranus headed?"

"We're moving upstairs to spar. Uranus and I have agreed that it would benefit us to learn from one another."

Cynthia nearly gaped. As it was, her eyes widened immensely. Had James Neutron, the one who'd once been called 'boy genius,' actually covered up her lack of skill and tenacity with an equal playing field? Had the man who had once loved to gloat over her mistakes and bring them back to haunt her actually thrown a blanket over her inadequacy?

It would have seemed impossible to her had she not heard it with her own ears.

"Sparring? Like, actual combat?"

"Not actual combat. Simulated combat. We'll be attacking and defending toward each other to practice our swordsmanship."

"Can we come and watch?"

There was a sparkle in Alpha's eyes the likes of which Cynthia could safely say was a rarity on the twisted version of Earth they'd been warped to.

"As long as you stay out of the way of our exchange, I don't see why not."

Perhaps the crack was a bit bigger than she'd thought, for James was being unusually wordy and definitely more intimate with his surroundings than he'd been in a long time. They headed up the stairs with a small trailing of children behind them and moved to the center of the large room. James drew his blade and Cynthia stared at him.

"I didn't get a moment to recover your blade for you, but perhaps we can start here."

He threw his blade like a tomahawk across the room, sending it whizzing yards over Cynthia's head. It clattered to the floor and created large, blossoming sparks as it skidded to a halt. She watched it stop, then turned back to James, perplexed.

"These suits have unique signatures that are bound to the weapon they're assigned. This also means that, with a very small bit of energy exertion, the suit will automatically call the blade back to its unit."

He flexed his fingers outward and the hilt appeared in the palm of his hand with a bright, concentrated flash of light. She heard one of the children gasp.

"All you need to do is focus on the feel of the blade, and then reach out to grab it. Feel it in your reach and snatch it from the air."

She closed her eyes, feeling for something she wasn't sure existed. She imagined the feel of the blade in her hand, the hilt resting against her palm, and flexed her fingers to grab it.

Nothing.

"You aren't focused enough," James quietly observed. "You can't just imagine it or expect it, you have to feel it. It's like feeling your hand attached to your wrist."

She kept her eyes shut, trying not to let his advice frustrate her. She tried to understand what he meant by feeling the attachment between limbs and thought she had an idea of what he was referring to, but when she tried reaching for the blade she again closed over open air. She heard him make a small noise that could have been a grunt and her eyes snapped open.

"It might be easy for a genius like you, but I don't have it so lucky!"

For a moment, he stood still, his blade withdrawn, the hilt in his hand. Then, without warning, in one deft movement he spawned his blade and split it in half tossing the extra blade to his waiting hand. Before even a single second had passed to process the information, he lunged forward, crossing the eight yards between them in a single bound, his arms crossed, his blades arranged in the familiarly-deadly X-pattern he'd been known to strike with. She had no weapon in her hands, no armor on the suit that could save it from its own weapon. She flinched, slamming her eyes shut, and braced her arms above her head for impact.

With a peculiar tingling in her fingertips and a slight case of light-headedness at the tip of her skull, she felt both blades smash harshly against her, but when she opened her eyes she saw her own blade, extended and held in a backhanded fashion, blocking his X from landing its hit. She heard him chuckle.

"Sometimes, the most dire of situations can arouse the most basic of instincts to save one's sorry hide."

He flicked her blade out of her hands and they watched it clatter to the floor as he retreated the eight yards back to his former location. "Now, try again. You've got the feeling, now make it work."

She kept her eyes open, focusing on the handle of the blade. She reached for the tingling in her fingers again and found that it came when called. With her teeth gritted, she flexed her hand and the blade settled smoothly into her grasp as it instantaneously disappeared from the floor.

"Perfect," James whispered. He almost sounded relieved. She blinked, staring at the blade, feeling an uncontrollable pride the likes of which she'd formerly kept repressed under an impassive façade. It was liberating to know she'd performed a task as requested and been somewhat praised for it by the great James Neutron.

"Now that you've got an idea for what it feels like, try the grappling hook method. Just block my blade."

He pitched his blade right at her head and she automatically deflected the projectile. Just as the blade smacked against hers and jarred her moving arm, it disappeared, leaving her with nothing to counteract against. She nearly lost her balance as her arm twisted around to complete its previous cycle.

"Notice how disoriented you are. The idea is to hurtle your blade at the opponent, then call it back right as it makes contact. This allows you to ready a second attack almost immediately and also causes them to waste energy in what could otherwise be considered an unnecessary block."

She nodded once, soaking the information into her brain. What he said made sense and didn't ridicule or belittle her in any way. The crack was more than she'd believed; it was a full chunk missing from his hard outer shell that had once been dubbed impermeable.

"Try the grappling effect. Don't worry about hurting me; I'll block everything you can throw. Keep throwing that blade at me until you're comfortable."

She whipped her blade and snapped her wrist at the last minute to give it a lethal fan-like spin as it cut through the air aiming for James's head. She called upon the tingling in her fingers and tried to call the blade back. The instant she saw his hand twitch, she flexed.

The blade smacked against his and disappeared almost instantly, but when it came back into her grasp she had to step forward to avoid faceplanting from the blade's gyro.

"When trying to recover a spinning projectile, be sure to account for its movement or else you'll leave yourself open for a counter. Try rejoining with the spin by rallying off another pinwheel attack, such as a backhanded forward flick throw."

He mimed throwing a Frisbee disc backhanded, his blade whizzing through the air and bouncing off the floor, reappearing in his hand to repeat the process. He kept the action in a chain for several consecutive throws, overhanded and underhanded, before finally catching the twirling blade.

"The spin is especially effective for linking chains of attacks together. However, repeated spins become rather predictable, and if you aren't good at throwing with both hands, you'll soon find yourself overwhelmed. They're also especially good for mid- to long-ranged attacks, but again, too many can lead to demise."

Cynthia listened as she experimented throwing her blade and calling it back again. She began to like the idea of having total control over the blade's movement beyond just the tips of her fingers. Experimentally, she lobbed the blade at James like a throwing dart, but just before he blocked the attack, she brought it back and whisked it around in a lazy pinwheel low to the ground. He jumped as she hurtled the blade once more and let it find its mark; she'd maneuvered him into an awkward airborne position that made it impossible to dodge the blade short of blocking it, and block it he did as he landed on the ground once more. The audience of children clapped as James flicked the blade back to its owner.

"Impressive. Definitely a string of beginner moves, but very strong for a first attempt. Have you got the idea of grappling down?"

She nodded.

"Good. Now, try grappling while blocking."

He hurtled his blade straight toward her throat, and she followed his orders to block the attack aerially. She threw her own blade broadside against his own, but just as the two collided, his own reappeared in the air a foot above hers and whisked downward, smashing both energy swords into the floor with a loud _clang_ and a mild earthquake beneath their feet.

"Aerial maneuvering of the blade is especially useful when implemented properly. It negates the need for close combat and is strictly ranged, so there's not a terribly large amount of energy being dedicated to the blade's swings. However, it takes immense mental concentration to even hold the blade aloft, let alone control it into attacking or defending away from its unit. It's definitely advantageous on winged or sea-faring opponents, as it offers distance between the unit and the attacks, but the amount of concentration it requires to execute is staggering and often leads to the user's death, due to blind spots and lack of proper guard. If you can't multitask at a high level, this isn't the way to go."

Understandably, it'd be easy for James to manipulate his blade aerially rather than physically, as his mental focus and decisiveness had constantly been her equal and superior during their childhood and teenage years. She admired that about him and thought that it was his strongest trait, even if it wasn't necessarily his best.

"Also with this energy and concentration splitting comes the ability to split your blades." He divided his swords into two, then four, then eight. He stopped, and Cynthia noticed with a hint of alarm that he looked very tense.

"To split this blade eight times is about the limit of my control. Anything further and I have no more grasp over their locations and actions. I can keep all eight aloft in the air and use them all to aerially block and parry any attack thrown at me, but if I try and add a ninth without an external catalyst I will fall to my knees. Literally."

"What do you mean, external catalyst?"

"The Overdrive. At each new level, I gain a quantity of blade control equal to the power of two raised to the Overdrive level, with a maximum addition of four bonus blades on my psyche. At Level Two, I can control two blades to the second power with ease, meaning four swords, plus the four additionals for a total of eight. This means I can have a maximum of twelve at Level Three, twenty at Level Four, thirty-six at Level Five, and so on, with the maximum at Level Ten, when I lose all control, when I can hone in on up to one-thousand-twenty-eight blades at one time, at the cost of my self-restraint and long-term mental processing. With that many blades moving at once, my short-term, instantaneous range of movement and execution is heightened to almost octuple its normal rate, but I lose all sense of where I am or what I'm doing. It's like being in a fog."

"How do you know all this? You haven't ever been to Level Ten."

He paused. "I did an analytic scan. The results were incomplete, but relatively conclusive." He rejoined his blades back down to his signature two, visibly relaxing at the decreased mental strain. "Try splitting yours. Imagine passing the blade to your other hand while keeping it in your original hand, almost like stealing or copying it."

She gazed at her blade, concentrating hard. She could almost feel the veins within her forehead and temples begin to expand as a light layer of sweat formed on her skin inside the helmet. The helmet's bio-synch monitors automatically set about filtering the sweat from her face and restoring a cooler internal atmosphere to her strained form, but she continued to let her body heat rise as she focused so direly on the blade before her. It needed to move. It needed to copy. She intended to do what she could to make it split into two perfect units.

With slow, precise movements, she drew her open hand across to the blade's hilt and squeezed both palms on opposite halves of the form, grasping and tugging almost teasingly at the metallic material. And, astoundingly, she felt two hilts forming in her hands, even though only one had previously existed. She pulled, tugging hard on the sensation of a nonexistent weapon, and with one final lurch the glowing green blade split in half and divided into her had-been empty hand. She panted from the effort, realizing for the first time how difficult it was to split a blade in half. Not only that, but she felt a sort of unfamiliar pressure on the back of her skull, uncomfortable and omnipotent as it surrounded the nape of her neck.

"Feel the pressure for the first time? It's not easy pulling one weapon into two, and the more you split the harder it gets. It's mentally straining and it slows down your reaction time and speed. However, you probably won't need to split your sword unless you're fighting an enemy with more stamina or armor than attack power or speed. A high-speed, high-armor opponent is a rare enemy to face, and to fight one with a high level of attack is even rarer still. Get to be skilled with the one blade before you begin testing your skill with two."

She slammed the hilts back together, dropping to one knee, a sense of dizziness taking her momentarily by surprise. "Then why did you have me learn something I won't need?"

"Just in case," he replied silkily. His inflection and deliberation in speaking those three words gave her a mild sense of uncomfortable foreboding. She frowned and slowed her breathing to a casual level.

"Now, when you've recovered from the side-effects that splitting brings around, maybe we can try some sparring exercises. Would you rather learn by copying me, attacking and defending in turn, or learning some other helpful skills?"

She slowly got to her feet, gazing curiously at her sword. "I want to learn how you do your cycle."

"Cycle?"

She scribbled in the air with her sword, the glowing edge leaving a faint after-trail that mimicked the pattern of a star.

"Oh, you mean my Ring of Death."

"Whatever it's called."

She could almost imagine him smirking under the helmet; the old Jimmy certainly would have. He began darting around her in the very familiar pattern that she couldn't quite copy. He stopped after a few seconds, standing exactly where he'd started.

"That technique?"

"Yes, that one."

He cleared his throat. "In order to understand the technique, you must understand how it truly works. It's powered by this suit's energy cells, the extremities of the human physique, and a little bit of clever foresight. The idea is to confuse or subdue an enemy to reveal a weak, unguarded area of skin or fur or body that can be jabbed at or sliced off. It's most effective on land animals with up to eight legs, though I think with tweaking it could work on those with ten. Flight-based creatures are less predictable in terms of thought processing and strings of attacks, but this same principle of deception and confusion can be immensely beneficial if applied properly. Basically, the idea is to appear, and only to appear, as though you're moving toward the enemy. Let me show you, in slower movement."

He repeated the exact same sequence of movements that he'd demonstrated a moment before, but this time he moved at only slightly faster than half his normal pace, and Cynthia realized something in that crucial instant: James's body only migrated in a circle around her, a circle double her height in diameter. She gazed in wonder as he walked in a circle, taking large strides as he plotted his footprints for her.

"Notice I keep my distance and account for the creature's girth. A good rule of thumb is to set yourself just beyond their range of reach, usually whatever the distance is across their body plus their arm or leg length plus the length of the sword. Notice also that I keep a mostly circular path. So how, then, do I seem to disorient anyone who watches?"

He stopped before her, helmet tilted toward her in a questioning pose. She blinked, realizing he'd actually asked her for a question, not a chance to show his intelligence.

"You…use the suit?"

"Correct.

"The idea is simple: this suit glows when charged with power or when moving at a high velocity. Because it holds its own charge that is synthesized from the atmosphere and my own energy levels, it never runs dry and only ever moves at the extent of what the human body can concentrate on and manipulate itself into doing. Consequently, what I quickly discovered is that by moving very quickly in a circle and darting my feet in and out of the safe zone, I can make it appear as though I'm darting closer to the enemy, and most sight-based enemies fall for this illusion rather quickly and end their own lives by their own stupidity. In reality, I get nowhere near the creature. I use a little glow factor to send an image out and then make it around the ring just in time to meet it and send out another."

He stepped forward very quickly and a glowing mist seemed to race toward her for an instant before dissipating. She blinked again.

"So, what you're seeing is me walking in a circle with accentuated footsteps."

He strode around her at a leisurely pace, though at key points slapped one foot against the ground inside the circle, creating a spectral image that jettisoned forward before disappearing. It was like watching glowing auras float toward her before moving on to the afterlife.

"At this speed it doesn't look like much. However, if I compensate for my movement offset and set myself up at about fifteen degrees worth of compensation difference, give or take two degrees, I can create a seemingly random pattern due to flitting."

He darted off, creating illusions of himself darting too close to Cynthia's body for her own comfort. She resisted the urge to swipe at them only due to her underlying conscious thought that the images failed to actually exist as tangible objects. James finally stopped running in a circle and stood before her. She sniffed.

"How difficult is it to move at that speed?"

"For someone who's never tried it before…it was like trying to run underwater the first time I set about creating this pattern. However, since then I've practiced a great deal in and out of combat to make my abilities and my circle the best that they can be."

She nodded once. "Teach me."

"Stomp your inner foot in the direction you intend for the image to go, then run on your tiptoes to meet it. Again, at the last minute, direct your foot where you intend the image to go, then run to meet it once more. If you create enough of a degree offset between cycles, you can confuse your opponent terribly and effectively. Plus, it looks good to be a little random in your strokes. Some can be closer, some can be farther. It's about being just beyond the edge of their reach and tricking them into seeing what isn't really there."

She attempted to visualize his description of movement within her mind, but found that beyond the basic concept of imaging herself, it was impossible. How could she create a randomized movement around a fixated object? Moreover, how could she do so if the object chose to move?

"Don't think about it, Uranus. That's the biggest problem you have right now. You're thinking too much and feeling too little."

"Poor choice of words coming from a genius scientist, Neptune," she bit back harshly.

No reaction met her vision or her ears. Suddenly, from nowhere, she felt a blow to her left shoulder which sent her staggering to one knee, then another blow to the back of her head that sent her mind spinning. Her helmet attempted to auto-lock, but there was no target to be found. Another blow smashed against her lower back and she curled backwards to counter it, her gaze resting directly on the figure of James standing over her.

"Another direct use it possesses is the illusion strike, which allows your body to move at a high rate of pace beyond what the human eye can perceive while offering the illusion that the body remains motionless. This is a simple, effective way of taking down an opponent without risking damage to the self, as the opponent cannot track the body's movements as long as they're focused on the afterimage before them. Your helmet has an auto-frame-blur feature that will allow you to track my actual movements and my perceived movements, but only you and the mind you possess have the ability to do anything about them. Learn what I teach you, Uranus. If you choose to bite this hand which has offered to feed you, be prepared to counter the sting of its slap when I lose my patience to one of your snide, ungrateful remarks."

So much for breaking a chunk from his shell. He'd turned back into the person he'd been just a day or two before, cold and brutally relentless. She almost shivered from the tone of voice he took as he reprimanded her, and his harsh demeanor completely obliterated the budding hope she'd had that he'd be slowly progressing toward his former self.

He turned and strode away from her. "I refuse to waste my time teaching an ungrateful snip who doesn't appreciate the delicate situation we find ourselves in, especially when I have so willingly given my time and energy to offer this proposition."

"Wait!"

He stopped. Cynthia hadn't said a word. Alpha stepped forward.

"Neptune, turning your back on the only person who made it this far with you isn't a smart choice. She may have called you a genius, but that's really dumb. She needs your help and she's upset that she can't do it as well as you can. Getting mad at her for it won't solve anything."

He turned.

"Uranus, getting angry at him for helping you isn't working. He's not the one you should be mad at. Try listening to what he has to say and thinking about how to put the pieces together in your own way. There's always plenty of different ways to do one job properly; try seeing if what you know how to do and what he's asking you to do can come together and find a middleground."

Both armored figures looked to the boy standing defiantly in the middle of the arena as he glared back and forth at them both. Cynthia couldn't tell what James was thinking, but she knew she'd been rightfully and respectfully reprimanded for her actions. Alpha had been absolutely right in his judgment: she needed the man across the room and wished to learn from him, even if she proceeded to get infuriated at her own shortcomings. He'd covered them up earlier for her sake, but to continue under the guise was lunacy.

"Alpha…You're wise beyond your years," James commented softly. The helmet finally turned to face its likeness. "I don't have anything to say to you, not even an apology to give, but I will ask once more because he is right and I am unstable: are you sure you're willing to learn what I offer?"

She gazed long and hard at the man. His monotonous voice indicated that perhaps he was still angered by her actions and Alpha's justification. Perhaps he was only doing it as a peace-offering or a courtesy to the boy. Whatever the case, she needed to learn what knowledge he possessed, and he was the only one capable of giving it to her. Whether or not she liked it wasn't relevant; she nodded at him only once before standing and drawing her blade. Alpha quickly retreated to the group of children he'd departed as James assumed his own stance.

"Perhaps the art of the illusion is a bit beyond you at present time. I fear I may have started with elevated expectations for you rather than accurate ones, and I refuse to make the same mistake again."

She refused to comment; he was deliberately fueling her fire with the heat from his own.

"Why don't we start with basic defensive blocking? Keep in mind that a simple block can save one's skin from even the most deadly of attacks. I'm sure you can accomplish defending against one blade of my own with one of your own."

More jibes at her skill level. She felt her veins boiling with magma, but her core withered from the hurt he caused her. Jimmy would have drawn the line after a remark or two, but James appeared to be insensitive to any outside feelings or circumstances. James was prickly and thorny all over, where Jimmy at least had a rose budding somewhere within the sharpness.

"I will attempt to attack you in any way possible. I also will only be putting a mild block shield over the end of my blade. I find that pain is one of the best motivators and teachers an animal can have."

He'd called her an animal. Less than a human. Knowing James, it was all a cruel test to see both how far he could push her and how much self-control she could exercise over her rage. Emotions would only cloud her judgment and divert her focus. But try as she might to deflect his words, they bit her so deeply she felt her insides begin to rot underneath the lava. Whether he realized it or not, he had quite the sharp tongue.

"Fair warning," he called.

She squeezed the hilt and her blade lanced outward. His own sapphire blue energy weapon pulsed with a flux of power as he inhaled.

He lunged.

Almost before Cynthia realized it, he was on top of her. His blade swung dead-accurate, aiming for the soft tissue just below her ribcage, and it was only by a chance shot of luck that she deflected its edge from knocking the wind out of her. No sooner had she blocked the hit than another smashed harshly against the opposite side of her ribcage. He'd successfully pulled a block-feint into play and brought her swiftly to her knees. She gasped for air as she leaned forward, her sword clattering to the ground. James sighed loudly.

"Too stiff. Needs more fluidity. I don't even think that noodle-arm of yours could have blocked a legitimate blow had I chosen to land one."

That did it. He kept jabbing at her inadequacy and she lost her temper. She stood, sucking air painfully back into her protesting lungs, summoned her blade, and held it aloft, adopting a crudely-modified version of her basic karate starting stance. A snort came across the line.

"Hand-to-hand combat is different from karate, Uranus."

She pivoted around her forefoot and slashed her blade toward him, fully expecting a block. So when he stepped backward just shy of the blade's edge and she followed her swing around, her back sang loudly of pain when his blade smacked against it and knocked her off-balanced form to the floor a second time.

"I was under the impression I'd asked you to be defending today, not attacking. Shall we switch roles?"

She lashed out with her foot, but kicked open air; he'd moved at the last instant. Laughter filled the arena.

"Fine, we'll do it your way. But until you can land a hit on me, you're forbidden from leaving this arena."

He'd set the rules and the stage. He'd initiated the game. Now it was up to her to devise a method to win. She stood, attempting to shake off her aching back, and reclaimed her blade before facing him. He stood three yards away, arms hanging limp, sword drawn and pointed forward. She began devising possible ways to outsmart him and decided to engage her motion blur visor.

Immediately, she noted that his edges were a bit fuzzy and sketchy as she focused on him. He was indeed standing right where she saw him, but it looked as though he was twitching very minutely from side to side, as though anticipating a possible attack with the intent to dodge it sideways. She resisted the urge to smile at how revealing the lens was, reminding herself that he still possessed a great many hidden tricks and talents up his sleeve that she'd not seen before.

She darted forward, focusing on the twitching. Finally, a large twitch appeared from his leg, and she lunged toward his trajectory. However, as she catapulted, she realized that he'd slid the other direction, out of her line of fire, and she was landing right in his attacking zone.

With a complex mid-air acrobatic maneuver, she twisted herself below his strike field and whipped her legs around in a sort of break-dance six-step fashion as her shoulders rolled against the floor. None of the kicks landed and he again slid just beyond her range. Once her foot connected with the ground, she flicked her ankle and projected herself via her shoulder into a standing position, her blade riding forward as she leaned toward him, extending her reach to the limits of her leg length. She glanced a blow off his blade and twisted away from the counter-attack, landing on her back rather suddenly. One quick fluid roll of her hips sent her legs projecting up over her head as she balanced on her shoulders, and with a synchronized shrug into the floor, her body propelled itself backwards straight into him, catching him somewhat off-guard.

Her legs wrapped around his middle torso and she locked her ankles together as he attempted to wiggle free. Digging into his sides with her thighs, she curled her stomach over and deflected several of his harsh, fast-paced blows to her legs with her own blade, bunting his weapon away from her armor. Finally, she unhooked her ankles and crushed her knees together overtop one another, flexing a massive amount of power to spin the man in a vertical pivot as she planted her hands against the floor. Her swing never followed through, however; as she neared bringing his head down to the floor, he latched his arms around her legs and squeezed, redirecting the muscle flow and causing her legs to bend in an awkward fashion that left him free to move and her in pain as she smashed her face and body against the floor, her blade scoring a large burn mark against the material.

"Interesting maneuver," James commented. "Was that some sort of disfigured ice skater, or an inept ballerina? Frankly, I thought it was rather like watching a tyrannosaurus attempting to tap-dance."

She panted against the floor, unable to move. Her body felt like she'd been crushed under a steamroller. She no longer wished to continue fighting. The fire was gone. She thought she'd had him and he'd outwitted her again.

"And you've given up, it seems. My, my, what a day you've had. Are you beginning to regret training with me? What would mommy dearest think of you now?"

She nearly growled. Her mother. What a low comment.

"Pathetic. To think you made it this far without getting killed. It's a wonder you succeeded."

He turned and walked away. She could see him across the room, striding confidently away. He was so cocky and so perfect. She hated it.

With one final stroke of effort, she clenched her hand around her blade and heaved it through the air across the room. Without making a sound, it cut across the gap and crashed into the back of James's helmet with a satisfying clout. He stumbled and tripped forward a few steps before stopping to whirl around. Everyone in the room could hear her low chuckling as she laid against the metal.

"I did as you instructed," she commented cheekily.

* * *

**_Thus, did the pupil surpass the teacher? You tell me. Any and all feedback is appreciated, and the update for Chapter 7 will come as soon as Chapter 6 has been posted. I'm terribly sorry for my sudden hiatus and departure, my gentle snowflakes, but if you'll bear with me and send me infuriated PMs questioning this story's lack of updates I'll promise to do much better at updating for you all. I love you all, and I hope you have a wonderful remainder of your Tuesday evening as we move toward Chapter 7: Just One Moment. ~Kyttin_**


	7. Just One Moment

_**A/N: I'm still terribly sorry for my absence. So I'm doing a double-whammy for you all. Review them both at once, review them separately, whatever makes you happy. Hell, don't even review if you don't want to. I've already got four more chapters written past this one for you all.**  
_

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 7: Just One Moment

They stared intently at one another across the arena. She panted from the floor, eyes trained on his tinted visor. A strange hiss came across the link and reminded her of a tidal wave crashing against the shore. Unusual as the noise was, even more unusual was the fact that he'd disengaged the tint at the bottom of the visor, allowing his mouth to leer through the glass in a wide, beaming grin. Whether it was sinister or sincere, she knew not. The sight of the teeth, however, startled her so much her tongue turned into a lead weight within her mouth.

"Well done."

For a moment, her brain failed to register he'd even spoken.

"Very well done. You've learned the first two steps to sword play: never give up the fight, and never let your opponent have the last strike. Always, always fight back even when you have no energy to fight left in you, when your spirit has been crushed and your mind's shutting down forever. Fight as hard as you can until the end."

She blinked. James began clapping very slowly, his blade retracted and hanging from his belt. She swallowed dryly and blinked again.

"Did...did that sword hit you too hard, or have you finally lost your mind?"

The grin shrunk by a few teeth, the visor gradually darkening back over it. "What do you mean?"

"I attacked you when your back was turned."

Laughter. Cold, ruthless laughter. "Out here, there are no rules. Attacking a man from the front or the back is the same thing to every creature and human out here. Whatever it takes to win is what must be done. For instance, if you were a true opponent, I'd have killed you long before you hit the floor. You wouldn't have lived long enough to swing that blade."

"Then I'm nothing less than dead," she replied with an injured tone.

"This also wasn't a true combat situation. If I were going for your throat, I'd have it without arguing."

She glowered silently, hating him for being right. His existence had forced her to realize his own superiority. Arguing with him wouldn't do either of them any favors. Moreover, attempting to fight the man on a level playing field was a disadvantage and an almost guaranteed death on its own. She found herself feeling bitter resentment toward him for being a genius, but the small voice in the back of her head reminded her that he was on her side and provided a great amount of security and firepower for her protection. She gently sighed and allowed her anger to disperse as she reveled in the fact that she'd landed a hit on him, even if backhanded and unsportsmanlike. As James himself had said, there are no rules.

She pulled herself to her feet, amazed at how much energy it took. The simple task of standing attempted to elude her grasp, but she forced her legs and feet into cooperation. So much of her energy had gone into attempting to wrangle the man before her, and he'd drained it all from her by slamming her to the floor, immobile and indignant.

"You're tired. First tip in fighting: conserve energy."

More unwanted advice that was necessary for her survival and progress. Still, she soaked it in as he laid his hand gently on her upper arm and trickled a fair amount of energy back into her. She shivered involuntarily from the influx.

"Would you like to continue sparring? If not, I have an alternative idea that might be to our benefit."

She shook her head. "I'd only get hurt."

"Then, I propose that we hold a meeting with Alpha," James quickly intoned. Both suited figures looked to the boy standing a bit off to the side, watching the proceedings with keen eyes.

"Me?"

"You. I'm a bit curious as to some of the workings of this vessel, as well as some of the things you've shared with us about your little group."

"Understood. To the boardroom."

The Alumni followed the small gaggle of children downstairs, though they and Alpha were the only three to enter the room. He slid the heavy door shut and locked it with a light click.

"So, what would you like to know?"

"First, what you said about the computer chips. What do you know?"

The boy shrugged. "I don't. I don't know what they do or how to work them."

"It could be some kind of GPS or tracking agent. It could even be a remote mind control chip. I wonder if there's a user-based override of some kind."

"It's certainly possible. I don't know what it all means, though. I haven't been able to figure it out yet."

James leaned forward very slowly, gazing deeply into the boy's eyes. Surprisingly, the boy didn't shiver or turn away in fear; he sat straight and confidently locked eyes with James.

"There's something you're not telling me," the man surmised. Alpha blinked in surprise.

"I'm sorry?"

"There's something you're not letting on about. Something you know. Possibly a few somethings. Mind sharing?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Almost before Cynthia could catch a glance at it, his eye twitched. Just slightly, and for an infinitesimal microsecond, but it twitched, and she realized immediately that the boy was selling them a pretty large lie with an almost-straight face. Obviously an accomplished practice, and startling to see in a child so young. Something within her urged her forward and she relinquished control on her presence without thinking.

"Young man, would you lie to your mother that way?"

The intonation she utilized, coupled with her gender and the instinct within her, cracked his shell immediately.

"N-no..."

"Then why do you lie to me?"

He blinked remorsefully at her, then hung his head. "I'm not used to sharing this much information with people so easily."

"Alpha...Gavin...We're supposed to be protecting you. We can't do our job of keeping you safe if you're hiding things from us. That doesn't work."

He sighed. "Alright. I'll tell you what you want to know."

James leaned back and appeared to relax into the chair, waiting patiently. Cynthia followed his lead.

"The chip was implanted into each of our skulls. I figured out a little while back how to get it to work. It's fueled by emotion and draws on energy for emphasis. I guess it's kinda like the sabers you use, but the chips send the power through nerves and out the finger slips. I figured out how to use the chip as an energy emission source, and I broke the security protocol by overheating three specific circuits that were supposedly failsafes."

"How do you know this is the case?"

"From what I can tell, the chip has...or, rather, had...a GPS system in it, like you suggested. Using advanced triangulation and pinpoint interpolation, I had the ability to instantaneously teleport from one side of this thing to the other. I surmised quickly that, since I can no longer teleport, I fried the GPS circuitry and I no longer possess an active tracker link on my body."

"So you're no longer traceable. Meaning you'll be able to evade any radar present."

"The chip also has the ability to scan for nearby radar beacons and trackers. Your suits have trackers that are deactivated permanently, from what I can tell. However...they have their own sort of code...almost like a genetic helicase...I can't decipher it."

"It's a hexinomial code that had a triple security grid and an access override blocker. It was made to be a self-sustained anti-tamper unit."

"That would probably explain it. At any rate, the chip controls the pads inserted into our fingers. I've found that I can shoot energy in the form of either heat or electricity through the pads from my nerves. Almost like having a gun at your fingertips wherever you go."

He paused. "It also gives off an adrenaline boost similar to that of a needle-based steroid shot, but without the harmful side-effects, as far as I can tell. It's entirely possible that an unlocked chip with enough energy forced through it could replicate Neptune's phantom ring, exactly as demonstrated in the arena earlier. I'm not quite sure how much of a boost it gives off, but I know it at least increases reaction time and movement speed."

"Similar to these suits. Amazing how one concept can spawn a plethora."

The boy nodded. "That's about as much as I know about the chip at this point. I haven't really been able to unlock it or figure out much more than the absolute basics."

James nodded slowly. "Tell us more about this fortress. What is it, what does it do, more basics."

"It's a mobile fortress based on a semi-organic, semi-living rock similar to the composition of coral. It's a very dense, near-unbreakable shell of rock that can bend, twist, and reform to suit its needs. It was designed by The One for the sole purpose of security. As it is a creature with a hollow inside, it is ideal for storing things or housing experiments. It's also a sentinel for the city. There are at least five other creatures much like this one surrounding the glass dome."

"How many cities are there like this one?"

"It's difficult to say. Big didn't ever let the command protocol to trickle down the line, but I overheard some of the finer details."

"Such as?"

"The ten-megaton energy cannon on this beast's arm is one of few high-powered precision weapons that can concentrate enough force to penetrate the glass bubble surrounding the city."

"So is the laser on Neptune's watch," Cynthia volunteered. James scoffed.

"That watch was destroyed when we first escaped the city. We're lucky it had enough kick in it to bore through the wall the second time around."

Alpha blinked. "Must've been a high-caliber laser to cut through that glass."

James nodded once. "Used for mining asterubies and pressurized space-born xenocrystals. But please, continue."

The boy cleared his throat. "That cannon out there can be sparked into creating a beam of raw energy strong enough to break the glass around the city. It can also be self-destructive, as you both saw. The sword is heavy, but agile. The claw can crush just about anything, with the possible exception of your suits. And that bludgeon weighs enough to crush a cargo ship."

Cynthia nearly let her jaw drop.

"Without embellishing this thing, it's a dangerous force at the absolute least. I hate to say it, but it takes a Titan to ruin a Titan."

James leaned forward. "Does this thing have a radar that can locate the other Titans? They'll need to be dispatched to make it to the city."

Alpha looked skeptical. "All I can say for sure is that this city isn't the only one of its kind, and stopping The One will be far more difficult than just leveling this eco-bubble into dust. It will most likely require an authority collapse of some form, where The One loses power due to the destruction of the other forces guarding him. There are five other cities on this continent that rule the world together, and all parties answer to The One."

"How do you know this?"

The suspicious tone that James imbued wasn't missed by either party. "I managed to get into this ship's logs and archives last night while you two slept after your rather loud match upstairs. I'm fairly certain that what I found was a copy of generic records and holdings that every Titan comes equipped with, but the information I gathered was as staggering as it is vital. If you two are serious about protecting us and defeating the enigma in that city, you'll need what I know to accompany you in your journey. I don't want to move the Titan outside the security ring for fear of arousing suspicion within the city, but if you have some method of establishing a relay link back here I can at least guide you along. We have provisions and living facilities to support ourselves, and your suits will do that bio-regulation work for you."

Cynthia was briefly reminded of the man sitting beside her as she contemplated the boy's words. They seemed so similar to one another and almost knew what the other would say without any need for speaking. Unnerving as it was, she supposed that smart people tended to gather with other smart people, else she and James never would have enjoyed their various adventures through childhood. How they'd ever become friends with Carl and Sheen remained a mystery.

"Where is the closest fortress besides the city this Titan guards?"

"Due west of here is City: H-311. Northwest of that is another civilization, City: L-051. Northeast of here is another; City: G-017. There are two unclassified fortresses that aren't labeled as cities; one is southeast off the coast, Fortress: M-043, and the other is straight north of here, Fortress: F-34-R. All are very well guarded and have their own leaders, all of whom report to The One."

James was silent, head tilted slightly downward. "Uranus."

She looked directly at his helmet, but made no other indication she'd heard him.

"Where do you think we should attack first?"

She blinked. James had just asked for her opinion. A rare event in itself, and one he probably wouldn't repeat for a decent amount of time. She blanked, caught completely unaware and without an answer to his question. She lowered her head and closed her eyes in thought.

Finally,

"Which location is furthest from this city?"

Both heads turned to look at her. Alpha was very plainly confused by the question, though James's face remained hidden and unreadable behind the visor.

"My theory is that if we start from the outside and work our way to the center, we'll have more of a surprise attack, assuming the cities have some form of direct communication with one another. It's entirely possible we can catch the leaders unaware of our movements and surprise them into submission or failure. That, and we gain a significant advantage in the end should The One catch onto the plan and choose to call reinforcements from outside to counter us; if we're headed into the war, we're prepared and won't be surprised by an attack, whereas if we work our way out and get a sneak attack along the way, we risk losing our lives to the fight."

Alpha blinked. James did nothing. She sat silently contemplating her answer. Perhaps she'd said the wrong thing.

"Perhaps you've learned more from me than I give you credit for," James mused quietly. "That deduction and judgment isn't exactly easy to conclude or reinforce, but as you've noted it offers the most ideal set of circumstances for us. There exists one problem with any plan, though: getting into the respective cities."

He paused. "There are two ways we can get inside. The first is to use a nearby Titan as a destructive force, though that would attract far too much attention. No, what we need is a more stealthy operation, one where we are left as untraceable as possible. The trackers on these suits have been disabled and thus cannot be geometrically pinpointed nor detected via nearby scanners, making us virtually invisible save for the light heat signature produced by the heat sinks atop our helmets, which given the atmosphere is, again, nearly untraceable.

"The second method to get in, based entirely on stealth, requires us to find a gateway of some sort and phase through it. Each bubble has an entrance and exit of some sort, be it a pressurized airlock or a subterranean ejection tunnel, am I correct?"

Alpha nodded. "The only city that has no connection to the outside is the one nearest to our current location, City: H-405. The glass must be broken to forge an entrance; an electrostatic charge permeates the soil and kills any organism daring enough to try and pass through it. The city is literally its own entity."

"That's where you come in. You can break us in if we can get that striker and that cannon to work together. We'll handle the rest from there.

"As for how we'll be breaking into these cities and fortresses, we find the airlock and jettison inside, sneak around at night until we get to the heart of each city, and take down the leader. Once dispatched, we get back out and move on. If we're even the slightest bit lucky, we can be long gone before the public knows what happened."

The other two nodded at James. "Then," Cynthia began, "the next question we have is of location. Where is the city furthest away from H-405?"

Alpha closed his eyes in thought. "Either L-051 or F-34-R. I think F-34-R is farther away, but that brings up the issue of how you'll end up getting around."

"Not an issue," James stated bluntly. If we start from L-051 and work our way around in a spiral, we'll hit all the locations ending with H-311 before making a beeline back here. How far away is the stretch from here to L-051?"

Alpha blinked three times, very slowly. "Sixty years ago there used to be states. Currently, this city is near where Austin, Texas used to reside. L-051 is up in the middle of where Anchorage, Alaska used to be. F-34-R is somewhere around former Toronto, Canada. Then G-017 is out by Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Then, if you're coming around in a spiral, your next target would be M-043 out between here and what used to be the Caribbean islands, a lone tower that covers abovewater and underwater ecosystems and life sustenance. Then H-311 is west of here, out in the hot desert of New Mexico."

James whistled lowly. "That's a trek if I ever heard of one. Getting to Anchorage will be the biggest challenge we face, especially if there aren't any outposts or facilities along the way."

"The City of Sin might still be around, but it's abandoned. It might offer some shelter. The landscape has changed a great deal, but large places including Vegas, Los Angeles, Portland, New York City, and Miami all still exist, even if they're abandoned or dilapidated. They might offer shelter or outcasts desperate to survive."

"Shelter is no concern; we make shelter. What we need is a method of ensuring we're headed in the right direction to the right place. There is a great deal of ground between here and Anchorage, and I doubt the world's changed enough to warm the place up. The city's probably little more than a gigantic igloo with as bad as the blizzards get up there."

"More or less," Alpha conceded. "I have a method for guiding you, but it depends on your suits. I would need a removable part from the suit that could offer a remote-control unit of some kind."

James leaned forward. "Tell me more and I might have a solution."

"I would need to put a makeshift zetabit tracker on some removable unit of your suit, just to be able to guide you in the proper direction and keep you on track. It would be a type of radar system, but in the event something goes wrong and my situation is compromised, I can alert you to destroy the tracer. If something goes wrong on your end, I at least know where you are to keep tabs and communicate with you. Hence why the unit would need to be from your suit; the tracer can only run an information and comlink relay setup through a unit connected to the coded signature of the suit."

With a complex bend of the hand, James thrust the inside of his wrist at Cynthia. A light blue backlight glowed from within a small circular panel set into his armor. She depressed the button and caught the cylindrical gauge as it popped free, and she gasped.

"A mobile Overdrive controller?"

He nodded once, pulling his hand back. "You know what it does to me. You know how potent it is. And I know you have the intelligence to know when to use it and when to leave it."

She snapped the unit into her left wrist, the armor melding around the dial as though it was water. "Like it was made to be there."

"Since the suits share similar lines of coding, they're receptive to one another and interact accordingly. That gauge still controls my suit, though, not yours."

"In any case, that removable dial is perfect for the tracer; it's paper-thin and should mesh perfectly with the suit, once it acquires the signature."

"Where is this miracle patch of yours?"

The boy reached into his pocket and extricated a small circular sticker with the thickness of rice paper and the color of charcoal. James tilted his helmet slightly and nosed it down a bit.

"I came prepared," the boy confessed. "I knew the possibility existed that you'd make the decision to go off and reverse the damage caused to this planet, so I brought the necessary resources with me."

"How do you plan on tapping into our comlink with a protected signature?"

He slipped the wafer to James and cracked his neck. "Is there any way to unlock the suit's code?"

"None. I've had it running through a processor in my hypercube for the entire time I've worn it and I've gotten no result. There isn't any hole in this encryption that the cube has found and I've been wearing the suit for nearly three years. Unless I force entry and risk destroying the security protocols, I have no way to tap in."

"Then perhaps an external method?"

He slipped a slender pole, white in color, out of his pocket. It sat at about three inches in length and rested on a black ring with a swivel joint and a ball-socket rotational axis.

"This. It's an antenna and a transmitter, similar to what you might know as Bluetooth. We don't have anything of the sort anymore; The One abolished all communicative technology beyond the simple telephone due to what he called 'corruption of the minds of the innocents.' I think it's ridiculous and totally unnecessary, but most of these people have been literally living in a bubble all their lives."

James took the antenna-rod and cemented it into the right side of his helmet. "I guess we'll find out if it works or not."

A unit similar to that of a conventional walkie-talkie buzzed to life from Alpha's waistband. He plucked the unit up, extended the makeshift antenna to a full four feet long, and activated the link.

"I guess we'll find out now."

James's helmet twitched. "Reading, loud and clear."

"Good," Alpha replied, stowing the telescopic metal pole and speaker unit on his waistband once more. "That unit is ranged with a one-half petahertz frequency lane, meaning I'll be able to send and receive audio with you for up to five thousand miles. That should be plenty strong enough to link with you through your journey north, south, east, and west. It consumes a great deal of energy, so the unit on your helmet utilizes your own body's energy output for power, and the unit on me uses a reinforced nitrogen-cooled uranium fuel cell that I can recharge just by setting it near other electronic equipment. Being within a Titan that is electronic and biotic offers me the advantage of never losing power to this unit. Your antenna, however, only siphons power so long as you have enough to be siphoned. If there isn't enough energy in you to walk, it'll automatically notify us both and shut itself down. Also...if you need to hold a private conversation with Uranus, it's removable and uses an advanced vacuum suction pull to adhere and peel away from the contacted surface."

James touched the weird horn somewhat skeptically. "Very powerful rig to set up at such a young age. How long have you had this?"

The boy blinked. "I made that last night, fearing this would come to pass."

"You made this overnight?"

"I couldn't exactly mimic the chemical composition of your suit, but I created something similar made of the leftover titanium plates you were using and the fibrous strands of cotton from one of the mattresses we sleep on. Coupled with a data transceiver and a lightbulb filament, you've got a makeshift antenna unit for communication."

The stunned silence that followed was nothing short of appreciative. "You've got a talent and a bright future, kid," James said quietly.

Alpha shook his head. "It's just what I do when needed. It's nothing special."

Cynthia could imagine a slight, contemplative frown on James's face. Alpha wouldn't own up to his own strength, his own talent. Almost as though he was ashamed of it or overly private about it. She blinked, thankful the visor could mask her musings.

"Alright. Uranus, are you ready to handle this journey?"

She turned to James and nodded with no hesitation.

"Realize that this will be very dangerous and will take a great deal of effort and energy to get through."

"I'm ready, Neptune."

He paused. "Then, when shall we leave?"

She stared at him for a second. "Immediately."

They both turned to Alpha. "We need a way out. And you will probably need to explain what's going on to the others."

"Easily remedied. Follow this corridor to the end, then turn left. There's a spiral stairwell that leads all the way to the left forefoot of this monster. It won't move until I command it to, so you'll be able to come back in the way you left however long from now it takes to get back. On the wall to the right is a keypad with three buttons. Press red, green, blue, then hold down red and the foot will open a hatch for you. It acts as its own pressurized airlock, so no need to worry about radioactive backfeed. I bid you both good luck, and I'll be here to help you in any way I can."

James stood and shook the boy's hand firmly. Cynthia repeated the action. "We'll be back soon," Cynthia called, sounding as though she were heading to the supermarket rather than out into the world to fight mother nature once again.

The two strode away and down the hall. James plucked the antenna from his helmet and silenced his audio projection system. "This won't be easy. If you're serious about going with me, you'll need to do exactly as I say in order to stay alive."

She silenced her own projection system. "And if you're serious about going to do this, you'll know you need to listen to me just the same to stay sane out there."

He nodded once, a very tiny motion of his head, but it was enough. She felt herself swelling with a small bundle of pride. Perhaps the shell James had holed up in was still open. She knew it took a great deal of humbleness for any man to admit to a fault, and James with his ego was even less inclined. The thought that she, Cynthia Aurora Vortex, had gotten James Isaac Neutron to admit to his flaw, was a staggering accomplishment and a well-deserved moment for a mental pat on the back.

They stopped at the bottom of the stairwell. "Ready for this?"

She approached the panel and stared at the buttons. "As ready as when we fought those eggheads," she returned. She thumbed the buttons quickly and with a practiced flourish, just as she'd done several times before. And the door slid open, just as expected, and they both stepped into the atmosphere, hearing the light hiss of the pressure lock dissipate the carbon dioxide mist into the atmosphere, and they stood under the red sun on the red earth gazing at the rocks and cliffs around them, feeling very much alone.

"Together," she said.

And they walked forward in silence.

* * *

**_And that's the end of this shorter chapter. Sorry I couldn't flesh it out a bit more; I'm not ready for them to have a serious "boss-fight" encounter. This chapter was supposed to be longer, but I don't think you'd enjoy Cynthia getting freaky with Prissy. As for where the apple-haired woman came from, go read Pushed To Breaking Point's incomplete form and see where she was first created. I love you all my gentle snowflakes, and I hope you'll bear with me as I delay posting Chapter 8: Sleep-walking Minefield for just a little while until these chapters settle. ~Kyttin_**


	8. Sleep-Walking Minefield

**_A/N: This update is coming much sooner than I anticipated, but seeing as I finished revising Chapter 10 and wrote the memory portion of it, I figured this would be an excellent time to update this story. So far, I've only received one review for the two chapters I posted earlier this week. ONE REVIEW. And it was an ANONYMOUS review. Crap. Maybe the fanbase IS shrinking._**

**_Anyways, just as a forewarning: this is the longest chapter I've written to date. It's 12'796 words according to FFN and MSWord. 22 pages of writing, single-spaced, Times New Roman 12-pt font. It's the longest chapter I've ever written for anything, and it's longer than any school report I've ever handed in. Congratulations, readers; this is a long haul. _**

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 8: Sleep-Walking Minefield

Dead.

The only appropriate word for describing the air. Dead. Just dead. No movement. No change. No sudden unexpected surprises. Just dead. Just nothing. No remorse. No sorrow. No happiness or anger. No treachery, jubilation, mystery, action, nothing. Just the dead air and the dead earth and the dying light of the red sun.

And to think they'd only gone six miles.

James had been silent the entire journey. He hadn't even attached the antenna to his helmet, prefering to carry it in his passive hand, arms limp and dangling oddly. It almost seemed as though he'd gone back to being the man he'd been three years prior. The man who was so cocky, so confident, so sure of himself and those around him. Not the closed-off shell he'd shown himself to be more recently.

"James," she called quietly, foregoing whispering for conversation.

"Yes?" His tenor stuck in her ears and she began to feel the slightest bit light-headed as a result.

"H-how far is it from here to our destination?"

They continued walking, but he remained silent for a moment. "Well, Gavin said we'd be going northwest to Anchorage. Last I remember that's an iced-out fishing town with king crab and salmon as their chief resources of export. If memory serves, it's somewhere above four thousand miles from here to there."

She stumbled over a fist-sized rock. "Four thousand miles?" she asked incredulously.

"Four thousand miles," he repeated grimly. "Which is why we need to get to the City of Sin, as Gavin suggested."

"Why, what lies there?"

"Fuel."

She paused, still walking along the dirt. To them, it was a moderate pace. To any other human, they were nearly running.

"What do you mean, fuel?"

"I mean just that."

"You're not being very clear."

"I realize."

"What are you hiding?"

"Let us walk another mile or so and I'll let you know."

She let her voice die in her throat. Another mile would be a five minute time lapse for them, more or less.

Perhaps there was some light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe by destroying the city structures of the continent they could make some sort of statement around the world. But for what purpose? Why did it come down to them to make the statement? Why were they the only two strong enough, brave enough, determined enough to do such a heinous thing? Why did they want to stick their noses into someone else's business? They had no reason for being there, fighting a battle they hadn't asked for. It wasn't as though the people of that parallel had called to some savior in time and space to aid them. No message had ever met her eyes or ears. Unless James had known and played some cruel joke on them as kids, leading to the deaths of three out of the five, they had no legitimate reason for helping anyone on the planet. They were just two strangers on all-but-alien soil. It was maddening to know they hadn't asked for such an existence and had yet been thrown into it regardless.

All they wanted was to go home.

"Alright, I think we're far enough. I didn't want Gavin to know so soon and I feared the tracers from the city could read the carbon signatures, so I couldn't reveal them any sooner, but they only happen to be prototype models after all."

He slid his hand down into the hidden hypercube and began groping around, almost as though fishing for his keys in his pocket. At long last he pulled his arm out, drawing a small pair of raisin-shaped cocoons the size of doorknobs from within the maw.

"Step back," he said gently. She lunged away and paused, watching.

With a ferocious whip, he smashed both packages against the ground and plumes of gray smoke billowed out. When they cleared, two small crafts shaped like miniature single-person boats materialized, floating four inches above the rocky terrain, their sleek black bodies glinting somewhat evilly in the dying red light.

"Prototype hover transit crafts," he explained. "Similar to my old craft, but made for one person only with a small storage compartment in the hood. I originally got the idea when looking at personal watercraft units beached at the harbor."

Indeed, they did look like watercrafts with the difference of possessing wings and glowing nodes on the rear corners.

"What's with the lights?"

"Stabilizers. They automatically detect between turning and straight-line flight through an...the steering column," he interjected, cutting off what Cynthia assumed would be a short, but detailed, monologue of the workings of the craft. She almost got mad at him for not continuing. Then she remembered how he'd so much enjoyed hearing himself talk for hours.

"They don't have much fuel remaining, though. Maybe enough to get us to Sin City, but not much more than that."

"Why didn't you bring these out earlier?"

He sighed. "I only have the two. And I decided that if I were going to use prototypes, we'd have to be in dire need and without fear of the possible explosive consequences that could await."

"So, you're saying we're down on our luck and we need some sort of miracle."

"Not a miracle, but yes, something of that nature."

She stepped onto the craft. It tilted and sank an inch before righting itself and floating upward once again.

"These crafts have sensors up to one thousand feet ahead of their current location and will automatically float above any oncoming obstacle that doesn't point straight up, so if you want to dart over a cactus you'll be taking a bath in some thorns. They're new and unused so please don't scratch them."

The old Jimmy seemed to be coming back. Perhaps not with his usual vim and vigor, but he was coming back. Perhaps he was slowly realizing that she needed him more than she let on. Then again, perhaps he was doing it for his own sake. Or perhaps he was just playing a game.

Either way, he stepped aboard the craft and pinned the throttle to the handlebar grip, the craft rocketing away from Cynthia at a very high velocity. She faced the direction he'd gone and crushed her own throttle open.

Regret and fear shocked her veins for a half second as the craft blitzed forward, the sudden acceleration nearly throwing her from the padded seat. She slid forward and dug her knees into the craft to stay aboard, gawking as the spedometer began to climb above sixty.

Somewhere far off, she could see a very minute trail of dust and realized James hadn't stepped into his accelerator quite so harshly. She caught him quickly and saw him shaking his head, the antenna mounted and active.

"You need to conserve fuel," he reprimanded over the line. She scowled, but said nothing.

The wind slipped evenly over her helmet as she tucked down over the seat, streamlining herself in the perfect mirror of James's own figure. The spedometer read one-hundred miles per hour in thick, glowing neon-green text that lit up the entire dashboard. Surprisingly, the engine RPM meter hadn't risen past four thousand, and Cynthia knew just enough about engines to know that not only was the craft a single-geared transmission, but that it was a very quiet and conservative craft indeed.

"Yes, Alpha, I know we're moving quite quickly," his voice sang in her helmet. "Didn't you know these suits have hyperdrive speed boosters?"

A rather obvious lie to them, but it might work to convince the kid on the other end.

"Yes, hyperdrive. Energy feeding through our legs?"

A pause where nothing sounded but the whistling of the wind slipping past the crafts.

"Of course I'm not panting. My feet aren't touching the ground. It's like a levitation mechanism with a rocket thrust unit."

Another pause. They began to veer slightly left of their original intended direction.

"Keep me posted. I'll be here."

He popped the antenna off his helmet and cemented it against his arm. "He sounded skeptical, but he didn't question it," James relayed over the link. "Seems he can't hear anything from this antenna unless it's attached to a helmet with an active link system, so these should be safe from his eyes for the time being. However, Cynthia, I have a strong warning for you. We're headed into once-populated areas with ruins and the deceased everywhere. Be very aware of your surroundings and realize that there are predators around every corner. If you do not wish to become prey on the food chain, you will need to exercise utmost caution and energy conservation. Clear?"

"Gossamer," she replied seriously. For once, she didn't feel as though she were being reprimanded.

"Then keep tight to me," he requested. Without so much as a second warning, his craft's single center afterburner flared a blinding bluish-white as a conical flame of raw combustion energy forced him forward away from her.

She blinked, staring somewhat distantly at the bright flaming light issuing from the craft. It almost seemed scary to her that she once again found herself strapped to one of his rockets, and a prototype at that. Then again, James hadn't yet failed her with rocket engineering. She squeezed the pull-throttle against the handle grip and felt the craft rip through the air as her spedometer began clicking upward, the digital read-out on the instrument panel quickly ticking and shifting upward, numbers climbing rapidly and unnervingly.

A yellow light blinked to life on her dashboard. The icon beside it depicted the need for fuel of some sort.

"Did your fuel light come on?" came the question, as though something had been said.

"Yes," was the reply.

"Keep that throttle tapped out. These crafts will hit up to eight hundred miles per hour, top speed, assuming the afterburner doesn't grenade mid-flight. The stabilizers also act as anti-friction shield generators, so the faster you go the longer you'll slide forward. These machines don't have brakes, so I've calibrated the forcefield to decelerate at a rate relative to the velocity traveled and the fuel present in the tank. Don't worry about catching up, just get that craft going as fast as you can."

His brightly-lit afterburner had all but disappeared on the horizon as she crushed the throttle as far as she could into the handlebar, watching the triple-digit number climb past three hundred. If she hadn't before witnessed the marvel of a Neutron rocket, she'd have laughed at the gauge and thought it was lying.

"If you top out at eight hundred soon enough, it'll only take a little more than an hour to get to the city," came another transmission.

Four hundred. Ridiculously fast. What she would have called 'stupid-fast' back home, but what she currently called 'life-saving' given her situation. She held the throttle as tight as she could.

The light began blinking. She could only guess it meant that the craft was running on little more than vapors left in the fuel tank, assuming it ran on ordinary gasoline. Knowing James, it wasn't as simple as just putting gas into the tank, and given the state of the earth, there wouldn't likely be a working gas station anywhere, not even in Sin City.

Five hundred.

The numbers kept clicking. Thanks to the decibel filters in her helmet, the shrieking of the wind outside her invisible bubble had been dulled to a light whisper, leaving her to concentrate on her destination and speed.

Without warning, her craft smashed into something. Whatever it was, it blew completely in half and left dark red smears all across the hull and fairing, splattering up across her helmet and gloves.

"James, I just hit something. Something full of a red liquid."

No answer. She caught sight of a second thing as she passed just beyond its range, craft still pointed straight.

"James?"

"What color?"

She stared intently at the fairing, gauging the hue.

"Perhaps a wine-red? Maybe apple?"

"Blood," he called back.

Another of the things splattered against the craft. It was indeed living; she thought she caught sight of a limb whiz past her head.

"Blood from what?"

She smashed headlong into two of the creatures and finally understood. They were bipedal, with long reaching arms and gawking, moaning mouths below white, unseeing eyes. They were rotting and decayed and probably stunk to high heaven.

"James, are we navigating a zombie field?"

"Not navigating. Snow-plowing."

She felt the craft smack against another creature and blast it to shreds, but at the velocity she maintained it was little more than a light bump against the side of the vehicle.

"Snow-plowing?"

"Correct. I've just run out of fuel as well, so now the field should automatically regulate these obstacles as a primitive, inconsistent form of braking."

Just as he finished speaking, the light on the dashboard switched from a pale yellow to a bright, obtrusive red, and the motor sputtered and choked before dying completely. Amazingly, the craft, travelling at just shy of eight hundred miles per hour, maintained its speed and lanced through the air like a perpetual bullet, smashing more of the humanoid creatures into fragments and blood. It was nothing less than sickening, but more pressing matters demanded her attention than the urge to vomit.

"I don't like this bloodbath, James."

"It's either you bathe in them, or they bathe in you."

She shut her mouth and pointed straight through the field, splitting more of the wretched creatures into pieces, struggling not to think about who the zombies had been while alive.

"We've still got less than halfway to go. Hang on for a wild ride."

No need to tell her twice. She drew her blade and unsheathed it, keeping the hilt aloft in her hand.

"I'll slice these things if they get too close," she threatened.

"The craft should do most of the work for you."

Another body crunched into pieces and blood spattered her helmet. The sky darkened as the sun fell beyond the edge of the earth, and suddenly she felt alone in a barren wasteland, just the slightest bit afraid of the fact that she was smashing through a field of the living dead, covered in rotting blood and chunks of decayed flesh. The stench would have been putrid had her air filters permitted such a scent to reach her nostrils.

Another crunch. Another wave of blood splashing over her visor. Even with the single light from the craft's lower fairing, she could only see a red curtain before her eyes as the darkness took over.

"James, what about the other creatures that lurk in the night?"

She could see a pinprick of light ahead and assumed it was his craft as he piloted through the hell around them.

"The damned things won't come near the smell of rotting flesh. These creatures are a poison to them if ingested, meaning we'd better be pretty thoroughly covered in them before these units stop moving."

Smack. Smash. Bash. Thud. Whump.

Body after body blew apart at the limbs and splattered her with more and more of the rotting blood. It became so thick on her visor that she could only just make out the edges of the light's reach. Her dashboard was lit just enough for her to make out the triple-digit number as it fell at a fairly constant rate of pace. It had fallen to just over seven hundred as she crashed through another dead soul. The creatures seemed to be getting more frequent as they journeyed.

"Strange," James muttered. He must've noticed as well.

"Why are there so many?"

The response was slow to come. "Based on what I can deduce, they're migratory creatures." Splat. "They move between food sources at a rather slow rate." Whack. "The only answer I can come up with is that they've exhausted their prior resource."

Crunch.

Bodies on bodies on bodies. Like an endless sea of red, fleshy kelp being smashed to bits with blood and splatter everywhere like a hurricane. The craft was at the perfect height to separate the bodies cleanly in half, leaving the blood to explode everywhere onto the craft and its operator. The blood on her visor, a red curtain dripping slowly away with the viscosity of slug slime, nearly made her sick as it rained over her helmet and upper arms. She continued fighting the urge to vomit, attempting to focus on keeping the craft moving.

Splish.

"James, they're getting more numerous."

"Hold."

Whump.

"I'm gonna be sick," she whimpered, tucking her head down to try and regain her senses.

Thud.

"Focus!"

Splat.

"I can't take this..."

Whack.

"Focus! Use your...karate, karate, karate...your kime!"

Smack.

"My...kime?"

Thump.

"Your kime! That macho-focus thing you did in karate?"

Never had she heard him use the word 'thing' to describe anything, scientific or otherwise, but she took more stock in what he'd said rather than how, realizing that she did indeed need to follow her kime and focus her mind.

_Concentration._

She began to navigate the field with better ease, taking slight relish in obliterating the human husks. It almost served to give her a feeling of justice at her fate, having been doomed to three years in little more than a radiation-plagued hell ruled by a madman in a bubble. Ludicrous. Lunacy. But it was daily life. The struggle had been raging against her for three years, and to get sick at the sight of what was formerly human blood was little more than ridiculous.

The crunching of the bones and the feel of the bodies buffeting the craft began to soothe her mind rather than aggravate it. Earth had fallen to pieces. She was doing it justice. She was cleaning the earth of its ghastly human dominion one necromorph at a time, spreading more blood and death on the already stale earth. She could imagine flowers blooming beautifully, grass green and proud dancing in the breeze as it grew from the rotting fertilizer that the bodies would decay into, the rivers of blood irrigating the beautiful garden. From the pathetic existence of the damned would come the beautiful rebirth of nature and life. Perhaps even some all-but-starved-off animals would return to the small patch of green, to drink from the red water and repopulate the planet with their kind, leaving humanity to crumble and perish forever. A wonderful image based entirely on the destruction and inversion of the grim situation she found herself flitting through, and each new spatter of blood, each little body crushed and ripped and bled out onto the soil helped reinforce her self-derived notion of justice and redemption.

The spedometer read just above six hundred; the glowing red light never faltered nor changed for her benefit. The tank was bone-dry, down to the absolute bottom of the barrel with nothing left to pull from, and still the craft glided forward on nothing but residual energy and the hover nodes. Another wondrous Neutron invention built to save the day.

Her mind lapsed into non-thought for several moments as she streaked through the field of flesh.

"Alpha says two-thirds," came the man's voice. "Close to three-quarters."

By her rough calculation, she'd been on the craft for nearly forty-five minutes, possibly longer. Time had lapsed fairly quickly once she'd calmed herself down. Unfortunately, her spedometer read five hundred miles per hour, and if her guess was right she'd run out of momentum almost one hundred and fifty miles before reaching the city. She gulped.

"James, we won't make it."

"What?"

"The decel rate is too rapid for us to breach the city. We'll fall short by more than a hundred miles."

For a moment, there was no noise over the line, despite the crunching and splashing of blood and bones over the craft. "I forgot to mention one key fact."

"Which is?"

"A craft in motion is easily kept in motion, since friction on the craft drops to nearly half of what its initial force energy equals. We'll bottom out at just under two hundred because the nodes will have enough run-off charge to push us that fast."

"You're using your fuel cells to power the nodes, aren't you?"

"Nothing else would withstand the strain or possess the capacity in that small of a space."

His tone had almost sounded guilty, but had a self-assured attitude that was different from previous situations she'd called him out on. It was almost unreal noticing the difference between who he had been and who he became.

"Three-quarters. Shouldn't be too long now."

More rotted bodies split and splintered against the craft as easily as though she were mowing her front lawn. The urge to vomit had finally left her, though she still thought it was a very gruesome sight to behold as the bodies fragmented before her eyes. She thought very briefly about how fragile human life could be and how easily it could be wiped out. Though, upon realizing she was the extermination squad of one, her train of thought derailed and she lapsed again into non-thought as her body automatically piloted the vehicle.

Four hundred and falling read the digital panel. Time ticking away like a bomb ready to detonate. She was surprised that the afterburner hadn't gone into self-destruct mode midflight the way most of his inventions had in the past. Assuming he'd even made anything remotely dangerous before they'd gotten into that rocket. He'd made frequent trips to outer space and had quite a reputation among the nearby alien lifeforms, though whether it served to be positive or negative was beyond her knowledge as he'd not described such to her.

"Growing closer," he called. "Still moving steady?"

She gazed at the panel, reading below three-hundred-fifty. "Three and a half. Good enough?"

Static zapped the link. "I'm at four. I'll end up arriving before you unless I turn into a battering ram."

"Are we not supposed to be impacting these things?"

"They act as a breaking system, which I'm sure you realized. You must be hitting a mass of them."

"They seem to be thinning out a bit."

"False impression. Rest assured more will exist where we're headed. E.T.A. is thirty minutes or less."

Her gauge had fallen to three-hundred-twenty-five. The red light still glared at her angrily as she floated almost silently through the thicket of zombies, letting the craft strike what it would.

"Humans won't scratch this craft, will they?"

"Repeated blows might, but considering it's a hybrid carbon-steel alloy with a triple coat of adhesive paint and a double coat of high-gloss finish, I doubt much will happen. Just try not to get knocked off-kilter."

No sooner had he said that than a zombie glanced off the side of her craft and pitched her violently to the side, nearly throwing her from the vehicle in the process. She cranked the handlebars and tossed her weight back to right the craft as it glided along, the spedometer reading just under three hundred and falling.

"I just fell below three."

"I'm at three and a quarter. These cretins work well for slowing down."

"They were people at one point, James."

Silence descended for a moment. "But that point in time has passed," he replied grimly.

It was with pain in her chest that she realized he was right. They weren't human. They had become animals, returning to their roots as primitive beings with only select few motives to drive them forward. They served no purpose other than to claim testament to the plague affecting the human race. And the worst part of that realization was that they could not be saved, only eradicated from existence.

"It's a sad truth to realize," James admitted quietly, "but it's one I had to come to understand three years ago when we first landed here. Anything not able to think or act according to its genuine nature is no longer a member of that species. It has become its own species and must be regarded as such, no matter what its appearance may be."

He was right. Zombies couldn't be called human because they weren't. Their brains had suffocated and left them with only basic survival mechanisms, similar to the average Neanderthal but without active cognition. The people they'd once been no longer existed and couldn't be brought back by any means, mythical or scientific. Consciousness went out the window. Instinct took over.

"Fifteen minutes and we'll be there."

Houses began popping up left and right as the spedometer leveled at just under two-hundred-fifty miles per hour. Ridiculously fast, but effective as a means of high-speed transport; she doubted anything on earth in past, present, or future of their world or the parallel they'd become stuck in offered the speed and grace James's inventions provided. Definitely not an average consumer's purchase, though it could easily become the product of choice if only she knew what James meant by fuel. Surely, petroleum products couldn't keep such a high-powered rocket engine fueled for longer than a few short seconds. It would take something unconventional and based entirely on chemical bonds and properties to try and power one of his rockets.

"When you arrive, probably about a minute or so behind me, head for anywhere that has food that you know of."

"James, I only went to Vegas once."

"The City of Sin rarely changes from year to year. Pick a hotel or a bar; most of them should be abandoned or converted to fortified living facilities. The Bellagio and Treasure Island might offer something worthwhile."

"What do these crafts require to fly, anyways?"

"Scrap. Garbage, aluminum cans, glass bottles, any number of non-organic objects."

"We just passed through a minefield of rocks."

"Rocks are classified as organic matter. They don't power this engine any more than AvGas does."

"AvGas?"

"Airplane fuel, one-hundred-plus octane rating."

Learning the octane level of aircraft fuel and the fact that it was specifically manufactured for engines and rockets of a high-caliber made her wonder just what the equivalent octane rating would be to run his crafts, were it petroleum-powered.

"You should be coming up to the city at any time. Find any sort of scrap or trash you can that isn't food; you need to be near a food source to find non-food products. Styrofoam and cardboard work, too."

"How will I know when it's full?"

"The fuel is dropped into the aperture directly behind the steering column. When the water turns green, you're okay. If it's blue, you've got a full tank."

"Blue. Got it."

"Oh, one more thing: don't touch the water."

"Acidic?"

"And electrically charged."

"Doesn't sound fun."

"Nothing out here is fun."

The transmission ended and she began scanning the looming hotel buildings as they hulked over the pitiful remains of the Sunset Strip. She immediately spotted Treasure Island as it stood towering over a cracked, algae-covered fiberglass pit that had once been a swimming pool. Twisted scraps of metal and shrapnel lay littered along the bottom, a gigantic shell of an animatronic pirate ship laying twisted and shattered on the outer deck of the structure. Even with nightfall overhead, the light from the craft focused on two moving objects roving the ship.

"Shield your eyes."

She issued the command for a tinted visor as one by one the hotels began to light up in the night. When Treasure Island finally flickered to life, the gigantic sign only lit halfway and several of the old, worn bulbs popped and fizzed at being used again. Sparks flew from the remains of the formerly underwater rigging as the powered wheels attempted to spin and consequently spliced their way off the rusted steel tracks.

The figures on the boat looked up and immediately locked onto Cynthia as a target. They were what her radar had seen a few nights prior: eight-legged scorpion-like mutants with a vicious looking set of pincers colored a poisonous purple. Their ten red eyes leered menacingly at her as she stood astride a stationary hovercraft, their long, undulating tails flicking back and forth irritably.

One of them hissed and lunged from the heap, landing in front of her. The creature had to be some three feet tall and seven or eight feet wide considering it spanned half the bridge leading from the sidewalk to the front deck of the hotel. She flicked off her tiptoes and landed neatly on the seat of the craft, her blade materializing in her hand rather suddenly as she locked onto her intended target. For a half second, she thought she saw the creature twitch in fear, for its pincers had stopped moving and its legs had quivered, jaws clicking, but as quickly as she'd seen it cower, it screeched at her and reared up on four of its eight legs, looking for all the world like a mutant centipede hit by a growth ray.

"I've got two octopedal creatures here at the T.I."

"I've got six of them at the MGM. Take care of them and investigate where you first found them; there may be a nest."

She split her blade and noted a slight headache come forward as she attempted to keep herself awake and balanced. It'd been a long day for her, and she could feel her body begging for sleep. The creature seemed to sense this discomfort and crouched, as if to pounce.

She threw her blade at a lopsided angle, using the other as her primary attack. As she expected, the creature leaned away from the first blade and was struck directly in the face by the second, the hilt sticking out of its eye sockets like a handle on a door. She recalled her first blade and threw it into the creature's gut, causing it to double-over and roar in pain and anger. With a charged lunge forward, she snagged the handle of her blade and locked her arms, flipping over the blade in a handstand as she dragged it through the creature's back and split it neatly down the middle. However, her gaze was locked onto her feet, and when the scorpion-like tail whipped down to stab through her she looped one knee over the appendage and kicked the other foot against the barb, smacking it backwards with a sickening _crack _that the creature shrieked about. So loud and high-pitched was the noise that the decibel filters in the helmet failed to completely drown the noise and it was with great dissatisfaction and an increased headache that she completed the maneuver, riding the tail neatly down to earth as it slammed backwards and split the aged timber of the bridge.

She stepped off the writhing creature and called her second blade back to her hand, adopting a lithe but powerful battle stance as she and the second creature regarded one another. The second one was larger and had a shimmering back. She focused her motion tracking filter on the creature and attempted to locate weak points as it faced her and hissed.

She lobbed a blade in a feint, hoping to see what the creature would do. It jumped over the blade and the shimmering on its back unfolded into massive, dragonfly-esque wings that buzzed loudly as it flew backwards and mounted itself to a third-floor balcony off the front of the hotel.

Cynthia looked around as she called her blade back, attempting to glean some sort of knowledge of the area. She noted that the mast of the ruined ship was angled oddly across the front entryway, spanning from one end of the patio to the other and reaching from the ground to partway up the opposite wall between the second and third floors. She gazed at its base and assessed the rubble ground up around the ship. The mast itself seemed very unstable and only looked to be held in place by a few stray pieces of shiplap and some interesting tensile physics with the nylon cables that had at one point been a makeshift rigging of knots.

The creature perched on the wall, leering at her almost tauntingly, as if daring her to come after it. She stared at it for a few seconds, analyzing every last little detail of its body.

"James, answer me two things. One: the ones that fly, how fast do they move?"

A weird hiss crossed the line before he replied. "They don't fly terribly fast at top speed. Maybe thirty to forty miles per hour maximum."

"Two: how smart are they?"

"Not very." A grunt came over as he seemingly decimated one of the creatures. "They lack the intelligence to think on their eight hooked feet."

"So if I were to try a sidelong ambush?"

"By all means," he replied smoothly.

She suspended the link, anticipating possible need of communication with the man once again. Looking behind her at the street, she noticed a smashed-out, sizable sedan and blinked. It would work for her needs.

She jumped and landed on the far side of the vehicle and charged her arms, hanging onto a single sword blade. With a grunt and a harsh swing, she swiftly drove her clenched hands into the car's already-mangled door and launched it through the air and across the bridge. The car landed on its side under the mast, something which brought her immense satisfaction.

Another quick lunge left her standing beside the car. She glared up at the creature and smashed the sedan onto its crumpled nose, leaning it to one side and using one sword as a prop.

"Trap is set," she muttered.

With a quick kick to the floor, she reached a second-floor balcony and gazed up the building. Using her sword as a makeshift claw, she half-ran, half-scooped her way up the wall to the fifth floor. She stood atop a balcony and gazed out at the creature as it sat poised on the wall like a massive, ugly spider. It stared at her rather stupidly, albeit with a terribly deadly aura. She looked over the edge of the railing, noting the mast directly below her.

"Checkmate," she blurted.

One supercharged kick against the balcony and cracks formed where it joined into the hotel. The concrete ground rocked a bit as it started to separate from the building. She looked down at the concrete beneath her, not knowing if she had enough energy to kick the balcony down.

She decided to try again and charged her leg once again. She could feel the muscles cramping from the influx as she lifted her leg up again. She focused her energy, harnessing what James had called her _kime _and directing everything she possessed straight downward.

The balcony cracked and twisted, groaning and crunching as it twisted downward under its own weight. It crashed into the balcony directly beneath itself and successfully broke the hunk of concrete from the wall as it fell. The third-story balcony smashed off, and with a triumphant pose on the falling rock heap, the dead weight of the stacked balconies smashed directly against the mast before crushing the second floor balcony off the face of the building.

The balconies weren't the chief purpose, as Cynthia jumped from her perch and began sprinting along the mast as it re-ordinated itself, using the sedan as a fulcrum like a massive teeter-totter swinging through the air as it approached the bug on the wall. Before the creature could even react to the situation, it had become forcibly airborne via the mast and had lost three legs in the process. It opened its jowls and roared, wings flaring outward only to be sheared off by chartreuse blades smashing harshly through the joints with powerful tomahawk throws. Before the creature could even serve to get its bearings, its tail separated from its backside and as it turned to fight the valiant armor-clad attacker, it felt the cold, ruthless flood of liquid neurotoxin drain into its body as she slammed its tail viciously into its face.

Said armor-clad attacker proceeded to promptly lose her balance and drop more than twenty feet to the rubble heap due to exhaustion, landing on her feet only by sheer willpower. She stumbled, balancing precariously on the heap, and looked around to survey the ground.

"I must say, I haven't seen ingenuity on that kind of scale in a long time."

She turned to see James striding toward her, his vehicle floating gently beside hers. She blinked, double-checking that her visor was at least somewhat tinted in the glow of the lights.

"I didn't think that mast would serve as a proper lever, but it's a steel-reinforced fiberglass structure by the look of it. And then to shear the balconies off the wall to serve as a weight...that's priceless. How'd you figure out to use that sedan?"

The car in question promptly fell over as she called her blade back, creating a wave of dust and a larger heap of scrap. "I needed a fulcrum. Physics class in high school stressed that every lever needs a fulcrum."

He was silent for a moment. "When you asked about a sidelong approach, I must admit I didn't expect this much of a spectacle. Marvelous show of ingenuity, Cynthia."

She sighed as she retracted her blades and fused them down to one, stowing it at her hip. "Do we have somewhere we can hole up for the night? It's been a very long day."

He gestured to the shattered glass doors that led into the hotel lobby. "Go pick a room. The elevator should still work provided nobody's tampered with it. I'll refuel the crafts and push them into the lobby before joining you."

"And you will be up to rest?"

He sighed. "Yes. Contrary to appearance, I'm actually quite tired after today's events as well."

Without another word, she heaved herself over the mast and hobbled into the lobby, gazing around at the slot machine alleys and information booths. She located the elevators off to one side and pushed the call button.

A faint _ding _sounded as the doors to her right slid open, grinding and creaking as they retracted into the walls. She stepped into the elevator and pushed the button to lead her to the top floor, waiting patiently if uncomfortably for the elevator carriage to reach its destination. As it groaned to a halt at the top floor, after nearly stopping twice in-transit between floors, she forced the doors open before the _ding _sounded and selected the first room she found open and unlocked, propping the door with a loose block of drywall missing from the nearby wall.

Thankfully, the room she'd chosen was still in decent condition, apart from the ceiling fan that had lost its blades. There was only one mild disturbance from the bathroom, and with a quick slash to the forehead the zombie dropped immobile to the floor. She dragged it into the hallway and dumped it, letting its blood spill onto the carpet. She didn't bother to watch the life drain from its corroded body as she stepped back into the room, and as the elevator _ding_ed to signify a new arrival, she plunged backward into the large cushy bed and promptly dropped off the cliff of consciousness.

_The watch beeped once, very quietly, as it ticked off yet another hour they'd been trapped. It had already been something like six or seven hours in the prison cell, but the count didn't matter. All that mattered was that one more hour they had been stuck on a godforsaken world had passed them by, bringing with it a morbid sense of reality that they wouldn't be returning home within a matter of moments and a clever bout of inspiration from the genius in the center of the room._

_He'd pulled a glowing red rod from within his hypercube and laid it on the floor, illuminating the area rather nicely. After some thinking, Sheen had been instructed to mark off the latrine in a corner, as the cell had no toilet. Carl sat dejectedly near the iron door. Libby had taken to resting her head on her knees as she sat on the dingy mattress they'd been provided. Cindy leaned against the wall beside the bed, gazing absently through the bars and imagining freedom coming on a shining white horse with armor and swords blazing. And Sheen hung on the door, pressing his face against the cold, rust-flecked bars. _

_Jimmy stood, gazing downward, the light to his left and just forward of his body, showing off a diagram he'd created with the stick from the cube. He gazed long and hard at the drawing, letting his mind rampage and calculate every possible anomaly he could. There had to be a solid way of escaping their bars. _

_He blinked, brows furrowed and gazing delicately at the etching. Thoughts of every possible scenario flooded his frontal lobe as memories and equations bombarded his brain at a rate of pace that would have left three of the other four with crippling headaches and incoherent speech for at least two days. He could tell something was wrong with him; every now and again, his brain blanked out for a brief spasmodic second, spitting in an image of blood or chaotic undertakings. He wiped the back of his hand against the cut again, which had finally begun to clot a bit in the purified artificial atmosphere. He knew. He knew exactly what was wrong, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the effects became permanent. He needed to get back as soon as he possibly could, for the only thing that could reverse his cloudiness was his robotic canine Goddard. Why he'd neglected to bring his wondrous pet along, he couldn't fathom. Then again, their situation seemed entirely unfathomable but completely real and vivid around them._

_Another burst of jagged red lighting struck his brain as he continued plotting out the construction of his plan. He had thankfully brought enough tools with him in the cube to try and construct something, even if it was crude and rudimentary. He could only hope the others had brought objects of interest with them, though it was a bit of a stretch to ask if anything save their own skins and the clothes they wore had traversed the jump with them._

"_Libby," he barked rather suddenly. Everyone in the cell jumped and immediately focused on him. "Check your pockets. What do you have on you?"_

_She did a quick once-over. "My portable music player and some earbuds. A wallet with my credit cards, identification, and a couple hundred dollars…and that new phone you got me as a graduation gift."_

_He blinked. "How valuable is that music player?"_

_She scoffed. "Jimmy, we're on a messed up version of earth, and you're askin' me whether or not this thing has any value? I don' even know if it works."_

"_Sheen," he called. "What do you have?"_

"_Well, I have a pack of bubble gum, my newest Ultralord action figure, my wallet with a card to Hank's Weenie Barn, and the phone you gave me."_

"_Does everyone have their phones?"_

_Varied forms of collective approval rang throughout the cell. A light smirk crossed the man's face._

"_Excellent. That's much better than I hoped for. Sheen, I'll need your Ultralord. Libby, I need your music player. Cindy, loan me two hairbands. Carl…hang tight. I'll need you in a minute."_

_Everyone stepped forward and proffered up items for the genius to take. With a very tiny flat-head screwdriver and a paperclip from the cube, the man proceeded to rip the music player's backing off and snap the head of the action figure to the floor. Sheen growled lightly at the violation of his property, but Libby poked his shoulder and shook her head, a serious expression on her face._

_With a clever manipulation of the microcircuitry within the device, Jimmy slotted the steel binding clip from one hairband into a makeshift groove and bent it awkwardly into place with the screwdriver. Using a tiny pair of tweezers, he removed some of the wiring within the Ultralord and tacked it into two critical places on the microboard, creating an effective short-circuit within the unit based on a timed delay sequence. One light spritz from his laser on his watch, and the battery gained a hole and began to smoke slightly. One more wire from the figure and the circuit became wired into the battery housing. _

"_Alright," he said, snapping the face of the unit back onto its shell. "This is a diversion. The idea is simple: Libby picks a song, then lets it play until the end. When the song goes to try and change, the circuit overloads and sends a static charge into the battery, which will change the lithium concentration into an unstable mass of volatile molecules in a box. It literally turns into a steel-and-glass shrapnel grenade when it tries to change songs."_

_He ripped the earbuds apart and yanked the tiny speakers from within, using several existing wires and some new parts from the headless action figure. _

"_These are miniature magnetic EMP pulses. Since there are only three tiny speakers with us, I can only create temporary, thirty-second blasts. They're wired to batteries, so in order for them to work the leads have to be tapped into the contacts. These speakers should be strong enough to unleash a magnetic burst and stop the robots from bearing down on us for a brief time, at least until we can escape."_

"_Carl, Sheen, Cindy, you take the EMPs. Libby, grab your bomb. I've got my laser and this glowing glass wand. Chances are the toxic, unstable ununpentium atoms will provide an intense rate of decay, far worse than something like uranium or plutonium. It should act as a last-resort key to salvation if all else is lost."_

"_Won't we all die if we're caught in that cloud?"_

"_Conceivably. Especially considering none of us brought Neutronic Hazard Suits."_

_They all blinked. "You didn't think to grab them and you call yourself a genius," Cindy growled._

"_Considering I never expected to be tossed into a wasteland an unimaginable distance away from home, I can safely say I didn't think I needed Hazmat suits. Anyone else have any snide comments about how we aren't getting out of here anytime soon?"_

_They all glanced at Cindy before shaking their heads slowly. _

"_Perhaps now would be the time to break for it. However, a civilization stuck in a bubble has to be advanced enough to have some form of interdimensional warp gate. My guess is that going up rather than out will benefit us better; these robocops won't see it coming, and we'll get some information about what exactly we're up against out here if there's no way home. If that's the case…I've got a backup plan worked out, though I'll try and stay one step at a time unless the time comes. For now, we break out and head up, whatever it takes. I think there was a way up in the main hall we crossed through. Everybody has the phones, right?"_

_They all nodded._

"_Each phone has a laserbeam that ejects from the top of the shell. Just press the logo on the back like a button to activate the beam, then squeeze the phone like a pump to fire lasers. My watch has a laser and a communicator, so there's no need for me to carry a phone. Is everyone ready to go home?"_

"_I think we were ready about six hours ago, Jimmy," Sheen muttered darkly. "This world will rue the day it thought it could bring down The Sheen."_

_A grim half-smirk of satisfaction crossed the man's face. "Then let's get out of here and go back home. This is one adventure I'm determined not to have."_

_He strode for the door, pausing only to activate his laser and cut directly through the bars. The rusted iron grid fell from its place and clanged loudly to the floor. With a deft hand, a device that looked like a television remote with a large conical antenna slid from the cube and sent a concentrated beam into the bars, melding and grinding them together rather loudly and uncomfortably. The steel eventually melded into a large, iron ball, clean and shiny as a car with a new paintjob. The remote fell back into the cube and he activated a tractor beam on his watch, hoisting the giant metal bowling ball into the air as he stepped through the door. Just as he double-checked that his friends had all made it through, he saw a golem walk through the door, looking menacing and angry in the red light from the glass wand. A flick of his hand sent the massive steel ball rocketing into the beast like a missile and smashed it into the wall opposite, crushing the gaseous glass chamber shielded within its body beneath the plate armor it had been tailored with. _

_Another activation from the remote and the motionless piece of motorized scrap metal crumpled and melded into the already-large ball of steel. Rainbow-colored gases wafted evilly toward the ceiling, a massive ionized smoke trail clouding across the stone overhang. He held the remote and wand expertly in his hand, reactivating the tractor beam with his other. The massive ball was already bigger than he stood tall, and barely fit through the wide door before them. He held it aloft up the stairs as the group traipsed upward._

"_If you had that shrink-crush device on you when they first came in, why didn't you use it?"_

_He glanced back at Cindy, her expression slightly frustrated and with a mild glower._

"_Time and place weren't right. If I crushed them before we got here, they would have called reinforcements and we'd have died or been stripped of everything before getting here. It's all about strategy," he said, a cocky air of self-confidence taking over his posture. He alighted the top of the stairs and held the wand at the end of his arm, reaching as far as he could to illuminate the dark entrance hall._

_Not a single window existed within the large, concrete structure. It was black as coal, darker than even the darkest night in Retroville had ever been. He gazed around, resting his eyes on everything as his posse crowded around, staring in wonder and awe as they stood unsteadily on the carved-up marble flooring. It was a massive structure of hallowed wonder and powerful aura. _

"_Stairs," the genius muttered. His group all turned to see a large spiral staircase near the rear of the room. He moved for the stairs automatically, focusing only on his goal at hand._

_Without warning, a ring of twenty sixteen-foot-tall floor-length mirrors sprouted from the floor and surrounded them. They all blinked and jumped, startled, except for Jimmy who seemed to have expected no less. Without any sort of hesitation, he set the large metal ball gently on the floor, so softly there was no noise as it touched down, and he began walking around the room, touching his palm to each and every mirror. _

"_It's not a perfect circle," he muttered as he touched the sixth mirror. "This is…"_

_He never finished his thought. "Duck," he called. Everyone immediately complied as he fired a laserbeam into the mirror directly in front of him. He barely managed to limbo beneath the beam before it ricocheted across the ring and began striking every mirror around them. Eventually an intense, glowing red web reminiscent of a spider's web hovered two feet above everyone's bodies as they laid on the floor, gazing upward in fear and uncertainty._

"_Jimmy, what the hell are you doing?"_

"_This is a perpetual light generator. I've seen designs for it in books before, even drew possible blueprints using different mirror configurations. This one happens to be the most perfect design I ever came up with. Basically, put a lightbulb in the middle and activate it, and when it hits the mirrors, you can shut it off and have infinite light scattering back and forth across the ring. However, mirrors have one flaw."_

"_Which is?"_

"_Silver isn't shatter-resistant."_

_Everyone blinked before realizing what he was talking about. _

"_You mean to tell me we're in a death room now that you fired that laser? Jimmy, the heat's gonna smash the glass!"_

_He winked at Cindy as she ranted angrily. "If this design is synchronous with mine, I also devised a perfect failsafe. Everyone, huddle up in the middle of the ring. We have five seconds."_

_They scrambled beneath the beams, clinging to one another as they curled as far into the center as they could. Just as Carl tucked his legs up, the mirrors made an uncomfortable ripping noise before the glass exploded in a very methodical pattern around the ring. Everyone curled tighter, waiting for the shards to rip them to pieces. Everyone except Jimmy._

_The tinkling and petering of shattered glass struck the floor as it rained down like bullets from above, crashing into the floor as one gigantic luminescent tidal wave of ruined glass and silver shards. And, incredibly, none of them got struck by even a single piece of the mirrors. Jimmy stood up rather suddenly and let out one bark, a short, hoarse laugh of triumph._

"_Exactly as I plotted. I'm the only person I know of to have conceived this particular design, meaning the person who implemented it here failed to shift this first mirror one degree left and create a raining death trap. Perhaps this is a sort of game we're playing."_

"_Who the hell creates this as a game?!"_

"_The idea was simple. If the glass were to get too hot from the light constantly darting across, it would inevitably shatter. However, I needed to devise a way to let the glass shatter in a way that wouldn't hurt anyone nearby. So, because of its construction, this one mirror is toed in just one degree and sets off a chain reaction as the first mirror in the construction. It is always the first that should be lit, and it is the first that should explode. When it does, the shards blow outward and strike those of the shattering second, third, and fourth mirrors, which hit the fifth, sixth, and seventh in an oddly-elliptical geometric pattern that eventually spreads the shards around the ring of the mirrors rather than into the center. If this mirror were set to be an absolute perfect circle, the shards would all blow out at the same time, or in an irregular fashion, and anyone standing beneath the mirrors, be them either on the ceiling or the floor, would be ripped to shreds and die in a matter of moments due to drastic blood loss. That was the failsafe. I didn't ever expect it to be used in a death-trap fashion. Very interesting implementation."_

_He lifted the ball and moved toward one of the wooden frames. "Everyone, gather."_

_The group scrambled toward him and crowded around, making sure to stay one step back from the massive metal wrecking ball hovering one foot over his head. _

"_Someone kick this thing over. Everyone has to move at once, though."_

"_Why?"_

"_The idea for the death trap makes me believe that these mirrors are linked together by a snap-clip sort of format with metal latches or a large nylon rope to bind them together as a unit. If these things fall on us, it'll hurt."_

"_No kidding," Libby muttered. Cindy stepped forward and lifted her leg, loading her knee with her muscle._

"_When you're ready."_

_She launched her foot like a piston and smashed the frame backwards. The whole structure creaked and began to lean toward them. The towering wooden sentinels leaned over like a giant, groaning forest being cut down by a helicopter._

"_Get out!"_

_Everyone sprinted across the falling boards and managed to reach the marble floor as the last one fell just where they'd been not seconds before. _

"_The idea was that the mirrors could be knocked over from the start. However, if you do so without breaking the glass, you'll end up having shards smash into you, as the glass is too slippery to get a running grip, and the mirrors from behind would end up stabbing through your body like a gruesome makeshift iron maiden torture chamber."_

_He briefly registered somewhere within his mind that his entire language pattern had shifted, even if slightly. He shook it off mentally; no sense acting like he'd said anything remotely strange or different from his norm. He continued walking toward the staircase, acting as though nothing had happened to hinder his progress. The ball floated ominously over his head, caught in the pale blue tractor beam as he ascended the stairs, his shoes making light, almost hollowed notes on the marble staircase as it twisted upward like a great coiled snake. He got to the banister atop that overlooked the large entrance foyer._

"_Must be a rich person's lair. Wonder what else we'll find."_

_Another staircase led straight up about midway down the balcony. He stared at it for a moment, watching, waiting._

"_Jim, why are we all standing here?" Carl whispered._

"_That staircase…"_

_He gazed more intently at the magnificent marble carving before him. Gears began whirring like an engine at full throttle as he focused intently on the stairs. _

_A very brief flicker, so short it must have only lasted one twentieth of a second, but it was enough; he caught sight of the second stair as it blinked and twitched, just slightly, only mere hairs to the side, but it was enough for him. He blinked, his smirk returning._

"_That's an endless staircase."_

_He suddenly turned to gaze outward at the foyer. "Strange we only had the one guard for company. If the others are all out gazing at that hole and trying to fix the pressure leak, we're alone in here save for the occasional bystander. If Goddard were here, he could scan for the gases that one released when I smashed it."_

_He turned and strode toward the staircase._

"_Didn't you just say it's endless?"_

"_Only if you let it remain endless," he called back to a confused Cindy. _

"_Da hell did he mean by that?"_

_Without so much as a flicker of hesitation, he pointed the dead weight at the staircase and fired it like a cannonball, blasting into the steps. Without warning, the staircase disintegrated into smoke and dust as he laughed, another short bark. He recalled the giant steel torpedo and marched forward, beyond the former staircase._

"_When put under enough physical force, a holographic projection can be disintegrated into nothing for a short period of time. Because of how massive this projection happens to be for creating a staircase, the reset timer should be long enough to allow us passage."_

_Everyone hustled after him as he approached the real staircase at the end of the walkway. He mounted the stairs confidently and was rewarded with the sound of mechanical servos flexing and whining as the robotic legs they joined together flexed and patrolled the hall he stepped into._

_Not even the first guard could get a warning out to his fellows as he turned to see a large, hulking mass of metal blast him out of the way. The ball shot down the hallway and smashed against a vanity unit sitting before a tall Victorian-styled window. Jimmy stored the red tube and laughed as he observed his handiwork._

"_Strike! I knew those days of perfecting my bowling machine would pay off."_

_He jogged after the ball, no longer gazing over his shoulder to watch for his companions. It occurred to everyone that he was no longer in his right state of mind, and as he recalled the bowling ball and launched it down another hallway to the satisfied sound of steel smashing against steel and loud grinding, crunching cries of simulated agony, they began to come to the conclusion that he was on his own mission, that he'd forgotten his true reason for invading the upper floors and escaping the prison cell below._

"_Jimmy's lost it," Sheen said aloud. Nobody dared answer as they ran after their genius friend, but they all silently agreed with their psychotic Latin friend._

"_This is more like it," Jimmy purred as he entered a large room that appeared to be a board room of some kind. His eyes scanned every surface and he blinked as they rested on a particular piece of the oak paneling bordering the lower half of the entire room._

"_Aha!"_

_He blasted the ball into the panel and smiled as a satisfying crack echoed in the room. With a careful burst, he moved the ball away from the square aperture and crater as he gazed at a tunnel that led straight up, rungs mounted to the opposite wall. The shaft was tall and very thin, and it was without hesitation that the man dove in and began to scrabble his way to the top. Without even a single bit of forethought or planning, he stuffed his head upward and fired laserbeams down the three air ducts he found himself faced with. Droids equipped with cameras and mediocre mid-ranged submachine guns dropped silently from the roofs of the vents as he continued to climb upward toward what appeared to be a solid steel panel. With a tug on a stainless steel handle and a hiss like that of an airlock depressurizing, the panel slid sideways and the genius climbed from the hole, regaining his footing as he observed the room around himself. _

"_Well, I never thought I'd be breaking into the armory," he commented dryly. _

_Surrounding him appeared to be dozens of high-tech futuristic weaponry the likes of which he'd never seen before. He gazed around in the tall, cylindrical room as he let his eyes absorb everything, and with a blink and a smile, he immediately spotted something he wanted._

_There were no ladder rungs to get up the walls, but two-thirds up rested two tall glass cases that seemed to glint in the light. They were of a black, tinted glass, and something outside cognitive reasoning and thought processing told the man that they held what he wanted in order to escape, be it to the outside or to home. _

_The hooks holding the weapons seemed to form a sort of mismatched pattern within his mind's eye, and without a second thought, the man reached up and began scaling the wall full of shiny, possibly nuclear or subatomic weaponry. He heard Sheen give a low whistle from the ground._

"_This kinda reminds me of Ultralord's weapons, but there's a lot more in here than he uses. Hey, isn't Jimmy kinda doing something stupid by climbing all those shiny guns? What if he sets one off?"_

"_That might create a devastating chain-reaction in which every single weapon gets fired or explodes," Cindy commented softly. "Don't jinx him, Sheen."_

_The group watched as the man leveled off with the cases. He pointed his watch, locking his knees and feet into some of the hooks holding the slings for the gigantic gun beneath him, and directed his laser at the glass, cutting a clean vertical line along the side just off the wall. With a second slice on the other side of the shield, the glass casing slid neatly from its resting place and smashed against the floor, cracking and splintering into a connected, tempered spiderweb of veins._

"_Tempered glass. Wonderful."_

_The second shield dropped to the floor and mimicked its twin, turning into a visibly-broken but physically in-tact sheet of tinted glass._

"_Cindy."_

_She looked up to him as she watched a rather large, slightly-green-tinted something with many layers and sections plummet from the stand it had rested on. She stood beneath the object and caught it, surprised at how light its construction seemed to be. Black mesh and a weird, tinted plating that glinted in the light and that gave off a gentle coloration in the same moment, like chrome with oil scum or gasoline left on it._

"_Almost like déjà vu, when our older selves were fighting each other on that massive warship," she commented._

"_Wear it. Carl, Sheen, Libby."_

_They all looked up and watched as six glowing objects fell from his hands. They struck the ground and rolled, landing oddly. Sheen reached out and picked one up, gazing at it._

"_Bracelets?"_

_He grabbed the purple ones on the floor, sliding the teal bands to Libby. Carl reached for the orange pair lying in the corner. Each of them slid the bracelets on without asking what they were used for, though they were desperately interested in finding out. _

_Without warning, a glowing figure struck the floor before them, causing all four of the group to jump. The glinting armor, the unsheathed energy sword, the horned helmet, the tinted visor, it all led to an aura of mystery and murderous intent. The man standing before them was no longer the friend they'd called Jimmy Neutron for so long. He popped his visor open and gazed at them all, but the glint in his eye was no longer of friendly intuition, but of blood and thunder and outright power rippling through his armor-enhanced body._

"_Now to find that portal," he growled, moving for the door. Before he could even reach a hand out to touch the sealed door, the room's bright white turned to a sinister blood-red. He looked upward, head twitching slightly as though he'd become feral rather than human. His brow furrowed._

"_Security protocol. We've been compromised. Someone must have found the empty cell or wondered why the guard didn't return from his rounds._

_The door dinged and began to whir before him as mechanical gears inside shifted, a complex mechanized unlock sequence unlatching and depressurizing the room beyond the simple aperture._

"_Behind me," he said calmly. The angry, almost sinister growl in his throat was not one to be reckoned with, and without a single sound the group moved behind him in a single-file line. Cindy had finished putting her suit on and slipped her head into the helmet, wondering how the man had managed to get his own onto his body in such a short time. She watched as he held his sword up, as though it was meant to be there._

_The door slid open and before the hissing pressure-seal around the air-locked doorway had dissipated for the trio of golems on the far side, his blade had split through one of them and lopped the arm off a second. A split-second blow to the face of the third, with a strange acrobatic whirl back to the second as the glowing sapphire-edged blade punched through complicated miles of compressed circuitry and felled the mechanized police officer without so much as a simple warning or moment to assess the situation. His computerized brain never knew what hit him._

"_Alright, we don't have time for the portal. We've been compromised so we'll need to get out, possibly into the atmosphere. My watch told me that those bracelets should provide anti-radiation properties to your skin and clothing, as well as giving some extra bonus power-ups in times of crisis. Stay close, don't wander, and for Einstein's sake don't die."_

_He pressed forward and to the left without another word. Before the group could even move to follow him, they heard a cry ring out from his direction. Cindy jumped forward and out faster than she could have ever done so without the armor as she attempted to get to him. She watched as he dug his blade into the gaseous chamber of a golem, his wrist smoking lethally in the atmosphere._

"_He melted my watch," the man muttered, snapping the strap off and throwing the useless hunk of what had once been a very useful tool over the edge of the railing into what appeared to be an infinite abyss. _

"_Does anyone think Jimmy maybe took some steroids when he put that suit on?" Libby commented._

_The group of four attempted to follow their leader, but would have failed miserably if he didn't lash out at every golem that moved to stop him. They came to a spiral staircase and began to descend rather rapidly, only mildly concerned with not tripping and plunging down the steel steps. _

_Without warning, the stairs before them exploded. The armored man up front stopped abruptly, nearly knocking the four behind him over the railing as they attempted to avoid a collision with him. The entire stair column had been decimated for at least two full rotations downward. It was at least a fifty foot vertical drop to the next stair downward, and the steep angle didn't allow much room for error in footing placement._

"_Go," he told Cindy. "Get down there. Catch them as they land; the suit supercharges your body and gives you almost double the strength you currently possess. Stop them from falling. I can hear more behind us."_

_Sure enough, the ominous sound of flexing, whining servos met their ears as the shrapnel creatures descended the stairs toward them. Cindy jumped, landing lightly on her feet even as the staircase exploded with noise. She looked up to see Libby jumping lightly after her, and with stable hands she caught her friend and helped center her on the stairs. Sheen dropped down not long after._

"_Carl, you need to go," Jimmy urged. The armored figure moved to stride past his friend, but the large man wouldn't budge._

"_No, Jim. You need to go. You need to get everyone home."_

"_I can't get everyone home if you don't go with us, Carl. Get down there. Now."_

_Carl turned around. "James Neutron, I am sick and tired of being the Carl who used to be sick and afraid and crying all the time. I'm sick of being the person I was in elementary and middle school. This isn't about you being a hero. This is about me, Carlton Ulysses Wheezer, being my own man and standing up for myself. If you want me to go down there, then you're going down too, but I'm not going down until I get a fight. I'm big enough to hold them off; they'll crush you like a toothpick."_

_The armored man attempted to muscle past his friend, but the man refused to budge. Finally, with an angered outburst, Jimmy shoved Carl aside and stood before the large man, glaring angrily down at him._

"_This is your definition of being a man? You need to be worried about saving your skin, not about having some unrestrained urge of testosterone!"_

_The mechanical servos stopped and a pitchy whining noise took their place. Jimmy gasped._

"_Duck!"_

_Microseconds after they squatted below the banister, a pressurized jet of ionic energy smashed into the concrete wall beside them. Carl still looked determined, angry, and powerful even as he hid beside the man who'd been his best friend for thirteen long years. _

"_Jimmy. I'm here with you."_

_The armored man nodded once, realizing he had no choice. He leaned out and gazed down at the girl beneath him, waiting for her next catch._

"_Cindy, take Sheen and Libby and go. Go! Get yourselves out; we'll meet up outside. Head for Retroville; we'll find you somewhere between here and there. It's due straight south!"_

_He leaned back in, deaf to her retorts and stood, spinning on his heels as he drew his blade and rushed forward. He began hacking at the golems, ripping pieces of them apart and turning them into little more than piles of scrap incapable of doing anything. They didn't seem to be terribly difficult to defeat. Once, and only once, Jimmy gazed over the railing to see Cindy running down the stairs, chasing a panicked-looking Libby and Sheen. _

_That one moment was all he needed. _

_Without warning, a sudden, harsh concussion of pure energy and metal smashed him straight in the stomach, blasting the breath from his lungs as he launched backwards into Carl, his wingman, knocking them both over backwards. Without warning, Jimmy found himself airborne again and smacked against the concrete wall, just shy of the crater. By stroke of absolute luck and off-based trajectory physics, his arms flailed about as he bounced off the wall and found himself at the edge of the twisted, broken staircase. His blade slipped through the gap in the steps above him and fell down, clattering shut on a lower stair. He reached even as he slid backwards, his mind blanking out, forgetting who and what he was. He reached blindly, and as his body slammed against the staircase and moved to fly off the edge and down the fifty foot drop, his open hand smacked against one of the banister supports. Reflexively, he slammed his fingers shut and felt every single bone from his fingertips down to his toes in the opposite foot shriek in anger and violent protest as his movement came to a sudden, unpleasant, unexpected halt, and without warning, his body swung backward toward whence it came, leaving him dangling from the steel pole of the banister support like a cat hanging from a gutter. _

_He struggled to pull his other arm across and heave himself up the pole, but found that at his awkward, twisted angle he could do no such thing, leaving him to dangle and struggle fruitlessly with one arm as he watched Carl tumble down the stairs and stop just three steps above him._

"_Carl!" he cried out, seeing the man's bloody nose and cracked glasses above him. "Carl, pull me up!"_

_The large man reopened his crossed eyes and blinked slowly as he looked down at his dangling, armored friend. He rolled onto his stomach and painfully slid down the stairs toward his childhood mentor, the one he admired and aspired to be like for all his life. His stomach protested at sliding down the metal staircase, his ears picking up the sound of the servos whirring and spinning in the background as the golem army advanced on them. _

"_Carl," the man grunted, attempting to pull himself up. Without a word, the large man reached down and latched onto his friend's forearm. Jimmy reached and latched his own arms up onto the big man's forearm._

"_Carl, buddy, pull me up! They're coming!"_

_The classes wobbled unsteadily as beads of sweat formed on his forehead. He swallowed thickly and shook his head._

"_What?"_

_Without saying a single word, he shook his arm and threw his dangling friend backwards, down some fifty feet to the stairs below, where a loud metallic clang was heard mixed in with a groan. The big man pulled himself up, leaning on the banister for support as his aching ribs and legs protested to his movements._

"_Your job is to get everyone home, Jim. My job is to be there for you when it counts, and right now it counts."_

"_Carl, no!"_

"_Go, James! Go now! Get them home to safety!"_

_Tears welled up in the armored man's eyes as he gazed at the man he called his best friend. "Carl, I'm not leaving without you!"_

_The golem stopped two steps above the large man. With a large metal fist and flexing steel fingers, Carl found himself hoisted aloft by the aching torso._

"_No, James. This time, you are."_

_Without another word, the golem plunged a hypodermic tranquilization dart into the man's neck, and Jimmy watched in mute, stunned horror as it dragged the man away. Two other golems trained their ion cannons on his armored figure, and with a last-minute dive for his blade, the beams smashed into the garbled staircase and ripped it further to shreds. He scrabbled at his blade and circled back around on the staircase, throwing it as hard as he could at the golem holding his friend._

_But when a sizzling blue beam just barely clipped the side of his extended throwing arm and smashed it into the wall behind him, sending him into a lopsided spin and dropped him down another level of the spiral, he finally took his friend's advice, and with a single tear falling from his eye, he recalled his blade and fled down the staircase, his visor shutting, eyes hardening, throat constricting from the pain and knowledge that he had just condemned his own best friend, the one who admired him and looked up to him for everything, to what would surely be a horrid, grisly death at the hands of a madman in control of the entire world._

* * *

_**I'm an ass, I know. Poor Carl, right? Heh. Things get sticky from here out. Hang in there, and hang with me. All will be revealed soon, provided I can keep myself in gear and start writing more chapters. So far I have Chapter 11 completed and I'm working toward starting Chapter 12. So! what will the future bring? Will anyone else die at my hand? Will The One ever be vanquished? And will the group make it back home at all? Find out what happens next when Chapter 9: Supply and Demand appears online for all to read. I love you all, my gentle snowflakes, and I'll see you in about a week. ~Kyttin**_


	9. Supply and Demand

**_A/N: So here we have a shorter chapter, just over a week since my last post. I'm sorry for the wait; I had to finalize Chapter 12's construction and it only took me all of this week to do it. I try to stay ahead of what you guys read here so that I can drop subtle hints every now and again about what's to come. _**

**_Pay close attention here to the finer details. I have some foreshadowing elements in this chapter that could potentially be missed, though I probably won't touch upon them until much later in the story. Also, to those of you who have been to Las Vegas, I DO RECOGNIZE that the physics in the previous chapter are broken and that the mast is nowhere near long enough to span the courtyard of the T.I. Bear with me; I looked it up on a map and decided to botch specifics for workability. That, and nothing in the JN cartoon was ever exact; I figure the same dynamic works decently enough here if only for my own selfish interests._**

**_And without further ado, Chapter 9 of_**

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 9: Supply and Demand

Darkness continued to enshroud the sleeping figure of James as Cynthia sat up, stretching slowly and leisurely as though waking from a nap of a hundred years. She gazed around, pulling at the tendons in her triceps as she raised her hands straight up, and wondered why it would still be dark in their room, given they'd fallen asleep to the dark of the night.

"Clock," she muttered.

On the upper left of the inside of her visor, a digital clock listed the hour, minute, and second, ticking slowly past as she stared at the glowing numbers. By her rough estimate, she'd slept for ten straight hours, something which was unusual and frightening for her to think about. No guard, no security, nothing to convince her she was uninjured and alive after sleeping the night away.

Still, she felt as though her fears were baseless and that nothing had happened, despite her discomfort. She blinked and disengaged the clock; it was only ever useful once in a rare while on the twisted planet, and it only hindered her night vision as she slid from the bed, taking care not to rouse her companion from his slumber. She stepped cautiously toward the drawn curtains, which appeared to have a sliver of light poking through. With no worry or care, she threw the drapes wide and immediately hissed.

Even the night vision sensors in the helmet failed to shield her eyes from the harshness of the mid-morning sun that blinded her as it streamed full-force through the uncovered window. The black-out drapes had justly done their job and would have continued to do so had she not banished them. After blinking and shielding her eyes with her forearm for a moment, she was able to squint and gaze about at her surroundings.

Below her and slightly to her left, she could see the smashed remains of the had-been mast of the wrecked pirate ship. The large insect-like creature still lay dead on the heap of rubble, though it appeared that it was beginning to boil and rot from the harsh sunlight. Across the street, past dead palm trees and empty car bodies, stood the once-glorious Palazzio, its beauty destroyed and left as little more than a decrepit building with smashed out windows and gnarled tree husks nearby, the formerly beautiful lamps and canopies darkened and twisted downward toward the earth like so many damned souls bowing their heads before their leader. Off to the left and somewhat in the distance beside the Palazzio stood the old, wrecked remains of the Wynn and Encore hotels, mirrors of one another that were nothing besides steel girders and massive, ruined glasswork. Select few windows remained in-tact, and those that were had been leeched of all color and vivacity, left to stand only as lifeless windowpanes rather than a magnificent glass menagerie.

More impressive than the smashed hotel buildings and rotting trees lay cars in the street. Vehicles of every size, shape, and make lay scattered, rusted, and decrepit all throughout the strip. Bikes, sedans, vans, trucks, taxis, limousines, semi-trucks all stood, gridlocked in an intricate pattern like a demented game of Tetris played by some supermassive supernatural force. The vehicles looked nothing like anything Cynthia could remember seeing in her time; none of the sedans seemed to have visible doors or handles, and the semi-trucks all seemed to blend from the cab back through the trailer with no room for gaps or exhaust. None of the cars had wheels to be seen, and they all seemed to be resting dead-centered on blue strips that ran parallel to one another down the street. With only a wild idea in mind, Cynthia could only guess that they were energy strips and that the cars either hovered or flew somehow by gleaning power from the blue lines, either magnetic or infrared of some form. Nothing she'd ever heard of or learned about in school could have taught her what drove the cars to move or stop, save for basic mechanical propulsion physics and friction-based laws of movement.

She gazed out at the chaos before her as the sun moved overhead, slowly bringing daylight to the land. She noticed what seemed to be humanoid beings moving about between the patchwork of vehicles, though her instinct said that nothing about them could be good. With a gentle command, the visor zoomed in to focus on one of the beings.

"Zombie," she muttered.

Though the city had at one point been wildly alive at one point in time, all she could see was the scarce members of the living dead wandering amok around the streets, shuffling and bumbling around as they attempted to find living organisms to consume or convert. She almost shivered at the thought of being eaten alive.

"Petrifying, to think about how this city used to be," a voice whispered in her ear. She almost jumped straight out of the suit at the sudden unwelcome intrusion into her consciousness, but upon turning around, her heart rate calming slowly to its former beat.

"James, you're terribly good at scaring the unsuspecting."

"Perhaps that's what's kept me alive; I've scared these damn things to death before they ate me."

He cracked his neck as Cynthia attempted to process what she could only assume was an attempt at humor, and while it was an utter failure at lightening the situation, it at least gave her some sort of hope, even if a pseudo-hope at that, that he might be coming around.

"I need to scour the vehicles around here and see if I can find valuable commodities. There might be futuristic technology in those units that I could manipulate to my benefit, and there's no telling how those prototype crafts will handle in this environment; they weren't intended for use in air that isn't composed primarily of oxygen as opposed to radiation. Not to mention the endless supply of material I'll need if something needs to be rigged up temporarily to remedy a situation or conflict that may arise."

They both strode to the door with great haste, and with only a small flick of his blade, James opened the door and struck down three zombies that had wandered over from across the floor. Without even pausing to verify whether or not the victims had perished, he forced the elevator doors open and stepped into the carriage. It groaned and sunk at least three inches from his mild weight. Cynthia blinked.

"Is that…safe?"

"No. All the more reason to hurry inside so I may implement my plan."

She stepped delicately into the carriage as the doors shut and felt it fall another three or four inches. She felt immensely disappointed that the possibility of dying in an elevator carriage crossed her mind and thought rather slantwardly that it would be a shame if she, the second biggest threat to the dictatorship of The One, were to die in a poorly-maintained elevator shaft because the carriage cable had snapped and plunged the cart into the concrete below.

Without a word, James balanced himself on his toes, perched on the handrails in the back corner of the box, and blasted one of the ceiling light panels upward and out into the shaft. He then pumped his ankles and vaulted out of the carriage.

"If you don't wish to die, I suggest you follow me," he commented quietly over the link. She ran to the aperture and jumped upward, landing with her legs straddling the hole, blade still tucked away at her hip as she slowly rotated to face her companion.

"Right. My suggestion would be to grab something that isn't a part of this carriage in about four seconds."

She moved to the wall and latched her hands onto an iron beam right as James slashed the cable, dropping the hollow cage straight down. He stood on the roof of the box even as it plummeted toward the floor. For a short moment, Cynthia felt her innards twist uncomfortably as she pictured him dying a gruesome death. The next moment banished the idea from her head as she reminded herself exactly who he happened to be. If James could be vanquished by an elevator after living for three years on a ruined vision of the earth's future, then he wasn't who she thought he was and he'd effectively doomed them both to death.

A sickening _crunch _came from the bottom of the shaft, followed by a large amount of noise and a tremor that worked its way up the blackened shaft. After glancing down at the wreck below, it was impossible for Cynthia to tell if James had survived or not, as he wasn't anywhere on the top or sides of the ruined carriage.

"When you're done admiring the scenery, you might want to slide your way down here. I may have alerted the entire building's inhabitants that there are humans here, as if the lights didn't forewarn them already."

Low moans began to echo almost on cue throughout the steel infrastructure and without waiting for further prompting she performed a perfect backflip off the girder and felt a thrill of excitement chill her bones as she dropped from the sky like a stone. Had she locked her knees, the suit could never have prevented or repaired the damage such a fall would have caused her, from her ankles through her shoulders, but with her knees limp and her legs loose, she prepared to tense up at the last possible moment before impact.

_Whump._

"I'd give you a nine on the launch, a six on the fall for sloppiness, and an eight on the landing," the voice commented dryly in her helmet as she stood back up, recovering from her plant into the elevator's crushed roof. She jumped slightly and pulled herself out of the elevator bay and into the lobby, gazing around at the rotted slot machines and frayed craps tables.

"This place looks like a sty."

"Probably because it hasn't been utilized or maintained in years. Saddle up; we've got some scrounging to do."

Her craft hovered obediently toward her from the shadows, and without comment she watched James astride his own craft drift silently out the front doors of the hotel. She jumped onto her craft and teased the throttle, letting the engine hiss as it pushed her forward at a pace so slow it made the thought of the craft traveling at nearly eight hundred miles per hour an astronomical impossibility, though given she'd seen it with her own two eyes, it only seemed to be a complex manipulation of physics and energy diffusion the likes of which she couldn't begin to understand. Even with her level of intelligence, competing with a genius would be like trying to wrestle a gorilla.

"Did you refill these last night?"

"Before I rode the elevator to the penthouse," came the reply.

"What exactly are you looking for?"

"I need to scour the vehicles around here to see what sort of technology they utilize in the engine construction. Since these crafts are only prototypes, I can't guarantee that they'll be structurally sound all the way through, and as the engine is a highly advanced creation of biomechanical engineering it will probably require maintenance and some makeshift part fabrication to be stabilized."

"They're unstable?"

"Not yet, but repeated, continuous travel at eight hundred miles per hour might put some wear and tear on the components and I can't risk a nuclear detonation that could potentially kill us."

"Nuclear? These things are radioactive?"

"No, no, megatons. The blast force and radius would rival a hydrogen bomb back on our home planet, but that doesn't make them nuclear."

"It just makes them lethal and volatile."

"Exactly. And since they're protos, I didn't quite get all the bugs worked out; biomechanics don't really work well when forced to produce massive amounts of energy and propulsion with no heat."

"You keep saying biomechanics."

"Organic matter that lives and breathes comes together with computer electronics and mechanical engineering to produce a smart, ultra-responsive neural distribution system ten times the speed of a standard computer motherboard bus, meaning near-instantaneous reaction and response time from rider input. It's the future of technological development, and the discoveries I made while undergoing construction have surprising promise and suggest a multitude of possibilities about prosthesis development and limb regrowth or replacement."

It was almost as though she'd gotten him back, save for the one small factor that created a huge wall: his monotone. Nothing he'd stated had been at all like his previous self; his comments had been robotic and dead, without energy or vigor in what he'd said. With the same lifeless appearance, he directed his craft forward and to the right, sliding evenly onto the sidewalk. Millions of papers scattered up behind him as he moved, and Cynthia saw in the light from the sun that many of them were brochures and maps of the strip and its main attractions. Scattered along also happened to be dirtied, worn cards that were frail and sunbleached almost beyond recognition, though she knew from having visited once prior that they were cards handed to adults encouraging voyeurism and pornographic exposure, even going so far as to suggest one-night stands and sexual fulfillment. She glided past distastefully, not gracing the cards with her gaze as they scuttled beneath her like dying crabs.

"This modernism is amazing. The likes of these vehicles is nothing we've ever seen at home. It's like my ideas were perfected and reproduced for mass consumption."

It was unclear to her if she'd heard awe or anger in his voice, though given how dead his tone was it could have just as easily been sarcasm from an unfocused mind.

"What sort of parts are you looking for?"

"Even with the modernism in these vehicles, it's impossible for me to find what I'd need from the average sedan. Unfortunately, in order to scour for parts, I'd need something a little more…"

She drew alongside him and let her gaze drift sideways to his tinted visor, his focus firmly grasped and locked down.

"…sporty."

She followed his gaze and blinked.

"Given how the rest of these cars look, I'm surprised these would even exist."

"It may be rusted out in a futuristic world, but nobody could ever resist the temptation to have the original thrill of a screaming engine and wind attacking the body and mind."

He stepped from his craft and moved toward the vehicle, which happened to be a rusted, frayed shell that had once belonged to a Ferrari of some form. From what Cynthia could grasp as she drew closer (having disembarked her own vehicle), it had been a bright yellow in color and had once been very well-maintained by its owner.

James didn't bother with locating the spring-locked lever that would unlock the hood; chances were fairly high that the cable would have been frayed and rotted beyond function. Instead, he did what any sane person with decent physique would do: he grasped the hood in his gloved hands and sheared it from its hinges with a loud grating noise. The sheet metal plate found itself hurtling through the air and promptly decapitated four approaching zombies as it glided, smashing into the front window of a bus before coming to a halt. Cynthia had watched with mild interest and something she had at one point been able to call amusement, but when she noted the figures of the undead approaching she drew her blade and stood with her back to James as he bent over the car.

"What do you need from the car?"

"The engine, mostly. But it's for parts. What I probably need to scour is an old plane at the airport or something."

"Well, you'll have to figure something out because you've kinda announced that dinner is served."

She gazed furtively at her radar, watching as the red dots drew closer and closer. She could hear the moaning of the undead as they reached for her with claws and gnashing teeth, their limbs looking bedraggled and rotten. It almost reminded her of what it must look like to walk underwater on the bottom of a pool, the way they shambled and tripped along.

"Well, since I want the whole thing, I guess I'll take the whole thing."

She heard something akin to what once would have passed as electricity on a cartoon show, and with a pop and a loud, singeing _zap_ the engine and its bearer stumbled backward into her. She locked her left leg and held the man from walking further, bracing his mass against her back.

"Having trouble?"

The weight rather suddenly disappeared and she very nearly flipped backwards. She looked to James, who had darted astride his craft, and realized he'd stowed the engine in his hypercube, as it was no longer in the car. Several of the other components appeared to be rotted and trashed, though the man had never said he intended to keep the car in good condition when removing what he wanted.

She jumped onto her own vehicle and chased the armored figure toward the airport, passing Caesar's Palace, the Bellagio, the Mirage, and New York New York on the way. She had nearly caught him when he suddenly doubled back onto his trail, reversing the craft's direction so quickly she nearly felt herself thrown from the vehicle as she mimicked him.

"N.Y.N.Y. should have something I need."

Without warning, his craft flicked ninety degrees to dead vertical, the afterburner pressed to the concrete. It blasted upward like a rocket, and he performed a complicated aerial twist to flip the craft onto the roof of the building. All Cynthia could see from the street was a myriad of buildings and a rather faded background of an artist's impression of Times Square.

"It's still here," she heard him mutter. He almost sounded surprised.

"What is?"

"The roller coaster."

What James wanted with a roller coaster, she had no idea, but as she let her craft idle in the middle of a clogged intersection, she noted that there seemed to be other creatures rapidly approaching her location.

"James, we've got bogeys inbound from the south. Northbound, approximately thirty yards per second."

"Give me thirty-one seconds."

A split-second calculation determined that she'd be facing the lead bogey seven seconds before he'd be finished atop the building. She ran a quick distance scan and blinked behind the visor; it seemed more of the strange, biomechanical spheres similar to that which had nearly taken James down at the fissure were bearing down on her. She knew the element of surprise would be crucial, and as she gazed about she spied the MGM Grand across from James. It would suffice for such a haphazard plan, but it was all she had.

She flexed her legs toward the rear of the craft and tugged harshly on the handlebars, angling the craft somewhat sideways, and with a noise like a shotgun blast she felt herself become airborne as the craft glided toward the large faded green awning atop the entrance to the building. She rechecked her radar.

"Speed decreased to fifteen yards per second. Believed to be similar to the penta-pedal creature from the fissure."

She could only guess that the thundering meant the massive creatures had let their legs extend and were scampering toward the intersection unhindered by the massive traffic jam that lay about them. She readied her sword, ready for her first strike, and prepped her craft for the follow-up attack that would offer her the destruction of one creature. With luck, she would be able to take down the first and catch the second off-guard enough to flee with James before it could offer up a counter-attack.

She stared determinedly at her radar, watching as the creatures drew closer yard by yard, thundering up the street marked Tropicana by a dusty street sign down on the corner. She waited, feeling the ground shake and vibrate beneath the hotel she stood atop. It would only take one miscalculation on her part to doom her to death, but she needed to offer James as much time as she could.

The foreleg of the first creature appeared, and with a vicious swipe, she threw her blade directly at the leg. By the time the creature's exposed leg tissue had come into view, the blade had stabbed through it and shredded through the leg, dropping it to the floor with a massive crash and an earthquake of tremors, but Cynthia was already airborne once again and had pointed her craft nearly twenty feet above the creature, by her rough estimate. With a clear head and a determined scowl in her eyebrows, she seated herself facing backwards on the craft, and just as it began to clear the beast she catapulted herself straight into the sky.

She called for her sword and felt the hilt materialize in her hand. So relieved was she that it'd worked that she very nearly lost her focus on the creature, but with her reassurance in hand, she reached the apex of her flight and tucked herself into a spinning, flailing ball, her sword's energy and extension technology ripping the creature into finely minced pieces of shrapnel the way its kin had at the fissure. Before she hit the asphalt between two thoroughly crushed car bodies, she uncurled and lengthened her legs, ready to kick off from the ground as she flicked her head sideways to stare at the oncoming creature.

She would have believed her eyes were deceiving her if she weren't watching the creature barreling toward her like a massive boulder, its legs whipping around as it rolled like a bowling ball ready to earn itself a strike. She took one split second to recalculate her path of motion and, while staring at the MGM before her, she felt the toes on her left foot touch the ground and knew it would be a massive risk. However, attempting to skirt the beast was a feat that was nigh impossible for her to do on such short notice and distance, and she knew she had about another tenth of a second before it would be too late.

With grid-iron resolve, she flicked her left ankle and forced herself up into the air, much to the discomfort of her toes. Given that she'd fallen straight down, her momentum prevented her from moving laterally as far as she could vertically on such short notice. She felt herself flipping in a backbend as she pointed her toes in a graceful arc. She felt her chest beginning to plane out as her legs continued upward, and she gazed at her target as it approached.

It wasn't enough.

She hadn't been able to throw herself high enough into the air, and she knew that she'd end up as little more than a mincemeat pancake beneath that massive ball if she couldn't come up with a Plan C from where she hung in the sky. Either she had to go higher, or the creature had to go faster and skirt beneath her.

It was a tough call.

She let her brain run wild as time seemed to stand still before her. Every possible option she could come up with wasn't good enough to save her from the situation she'd created. She hadn't calculated initially that the second of the two would use her for target practice as a bowling pin, and as such she'd forced herself out of options to recuperate.

She was going to be crushed to death.

She saw time return to normal, and as she leveled off and began to fall, she closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable to happen. This was the end of her. It was how she was destined to die, victimized by her own careless mistake. Even given that she'd had no way of knowing what the creature would do, she'd failed to create a backup plan or alternative tactic to escape, even if doing so unharmed was out of the question.

_Goodbye, James._

She felt it slam into her body, but when she smashed stomach-first into a lush, green lawn and felt the pressure on her back cease and desist, she opened her eyes and gazed upward.

"Thirty-one seconds," came the expressionless comment. She blinked.

He lunged away from her and began hacking at the creature while she pushed herself to her knees and drank in the surroundings. Something told her she'd just denied Death the opportunity to take her hand and run with it. Rather, James had denied Death the opportunity. The rumbling stopped, followed by a metallic screech, and then silence.

She stood on shaky legs, realizing she'd never been that close to death before. The thought that she could have died sobered her resolve, and had she been anyone but herself she would have broken down and cried. But Cynthia had changed and wouldn't cry about death. Death didn't have her. Life did.

She turned around and spotted her craft hovering calmly a few inches above the grass. By her guess, she'd landed in the yard of a nearby hotel, and without waiting to find out how the grass happened to be green or where the water to do so came from, she mounted the vehicle and rocketed into the air, eyes flicking around to locate her companion.

He had boarded his own craft and was making his way south toward the airport, directly through the shattered remains of the second creature as it lay in the intersection. She pointed her craft toward Tropicana again and leveled off just before hitting the asphalt.

"Still need that engine?"

"Moreso than you'd think," he replied evenly.

She mentally cursed herself for being so stubborn and selfish. She hadn't even had the guts to thank him for saving her life. Perhaps he didn't expect her to. The thought bothered her immensely.

She reached the airport and vaulted the craft over the chain-link razor wire fence, gliding gently toward a high-speed private jet near where James had parked his vehicle. She dismounted and gazed about.

Bits and pieces of shrapnel began peeling off the craft's underbelly like dead skin off a sunburn. She blinked and furtively grasped some of the peeled metal.

"Should we refill the crafts before we go?"

"Not with that. Unfortunately, they're not meant to ingest aircraft-grade aluminum."

A loud grinding noise met her ears.

"Perfect. The engines are still fully functional units. Now…"

She heard some thudding and gazed at the engine housings, which happened to be mounted on the body of the plane rather than the wings. James had torn directly into their housings and, judging by the sounds, was attempting to dislodge one of them.

"Watch your head," came the warning. No sooner had she stepped back than the entire engine housing and casing dropped clear from the plane and crashed into the concrete tarmac.

"How do you plan on lifting this thing to fit it into the cube?"

He dropped from the shredded remains of the housing mount, sparking wires and fluid spewing everywhere around him. "Considering it's still fully functional and would've worked had I left it in tact…I'm disappointed the design innovation hasn't progressed any further. However," he paused, drawing what looked to be a remote for a video game console from the cube, "I might be able to make this thing run as it is."

The engine floated from its shroud and hovered in the air while James walked around it twice, observing the mechanical structure as it leaked. "A bit on the tense side," he commented, "but it'll work. It's not the exact model I'm looking for, but I doubt I'd find one around here."

"What model would it need to be?"

"This is a TX classification, something built for private jets. There are two other big models in existence, the EX and the MX. The EX is for standard aircraft, usually passenger liners. But the brand I'm looking for is an MX, which is more commonly found in military jet-propelled aircraft."

"Meaning you'd have to ruin a fighter jet."

"More or less. But this will do."

He guided the tail of the engine toward his hip, and with a noise like a giant slurping from a soup bowl, the structure warped into the cube's innards. The remote followed suit.

"Does that thing ever get heavy?"

"Because of the way it's constructed, weight isn't a factor, nor is size. It's almost like sending the objects into nonbeing until I call upon them again."

It had to have been the strangest description she'd ever heard him give for any one of his inventions, but he boarded his craft and lanced away, and without so much as a moment to ask another question, she followed suit, heading away from the sun and toward the cold north that awaited them.

* * *

_**So...that last bit...is BS. I don't rightly know what model classes apply to civilian, privatized, and military plane engines. But, given sixty years forward in time, I suppose it mightn't be too impossible. So what happens now? What will James and Cynthia do as they head north? Who will greet them as the approach the much colder atmosphere? Will they ever go home? Or will they be doomed to live out the vicious cycle spread before them? Find out more in Chapter 10! I love you all, my gentle snowflakes, though I won't post the chapter title until I upload the next chapter; too much spoiler info. Catch up with me then! ~Kyttin**_


	10. Lady Priscilla, the Asmodeus Goddess

**_A/N: So, I'm in English class on an iPad trying to upload this thingy for you all. Not much to say. Enjoy the chappie._**

* * *

_City: H-405_

Chapter 10: Lady Priscilla, the Asmodeus Goddess

Anchorage, Alaska.

From what Cynthia could remember, the place was supposed to be icy cold nine months out of the year and endlessly sunny the other three. What she met was a bit off the mark: the radiation had changed the earth's geospheric structure, and as such it was cold. Not just the standard thirty-below Anchorage typically hit, no. She shivered inside her insulated suit and had to double-check that her thermostat wasn't lying to her. If the temperature was correct, she would die of frostbite after two minutes in the biting temperature. Eighty-five-below was nothing to take lightly, and she noted a light chill permeating the mesh fabric; even with futuristic heat-management technology, the regulator coils still couldn't provide enough insulation against the cold.

"If it were any colder, it'd be raining sheets of ice," she muttered darkly.

"If it were any colder, the glass would crack," James commented dully.

They gazed at the glass bubble as they sat atop their respective crafts, having disengaged them from engine-based flight nearly thirty miles from the city.

"It's not safe out here."

"Whatever used to live out here won't have survived. It's safer out here than it is in there."

Cynthia watched as he dismounted his craft and stepped across the icy ground. He stopped and stomped one foot, making a noise over the link.

"The ice is at least six feet thick. Possibly more toward eight or nine, if I had to guess."

He stepped right up to the glass bubble and rested his gloved hand against it, standing still for a moment. He then turned and remounted his craft, pushing it to a gliding pace off toward their left. Cynthia mimicked him without comment, knowing all would become clear momentarily.

Without warning, he stopped and disembarked. Cynthia nearly ran him over and thanked some unseen power that there wasn't a snowstorm or worse roiling about to obscure her vision. Other than the crushing blackness and the red light of her radar, all was clear through her visor.

James crouched and touched the ice carefully, pressing against key areas until he seemed to find what he needed. He then drew the welding torch from within the hypercube, taking care to let the pressurized tanks remain within. He fired the torch until it ignited, then tuned the flame to a bright piercing blue before holding it to the ice.

Using what could only be perceived as a controlled burn rate, the ice began to liquefy and evaporate under the intense heat. A cylinder began to cut its way straight down, and James went with it in a sinking pool of ice water. Cynthia watched as he slowly lowered beneath the surface of the ice and listened intently to her link until she heard a light exhalation on his end.

"Found the bottom?"

"Jump through. This is how we're getting back out, too."

She leapt from the silent craft and straight down the hole, bracing for a gentle impact. James stood before a massive steel door hidden within a tunnel carved in the ice.

"Pressurized airlock," he commented.

The door clunked under the sudden change in temperature, having previously been located in an icy tunnel at least six feet below the surface they'd been scouring. Behind her, Cynthia registered a tunnel carved into the ice, though how far it went was beyond her. Shockingly, there was dirt underfoot, though it was frozen and crackled as they walked.

The door clunked again. James paused.

"I wonder what sort of lock mechanism it has. We don't want to ruin the integrity of the door; this airlock is the only thing keeping the inside warmth away from this temperature."

"James, it's almost minus one hundred down here under the ice. I don't think the inside would stand a chance if it were exposed to this temperature."

"The bubble would probably implode, to say the least."

He stepped right up to the massive door, looking for all the world like a bank teller trying to access the main vault at the rear of the facility. He stared intently at the housing, though Cynthia had no idea what he was checking for. As if he'd interpreted her confusion, he snapped his fingers. The noise was sudden, startling, and loud given the gloves covering his hands.

"Vernacular."

"What?"

"The door. It only opens when presented the proper vernacular."

"…You mean to tell me it's voice-activated?"

"Precisely."

"So what sort of word or phrase does it respond to?"

"That would be what we're here to figure out."

"James, we can't just stand out here and freeze. If it gets any colder out here, I don't think our suits will be able to handle the thermal regulation and we'll end up human popsicles. I'm not sure about you and your philosophy, but I didn't spend three years here on this godforsaken soil just to be frozen to death before I could get back home to my life."

The man pushed his palm to the door, lowering his head slightly. He then slipped his hand into the maw of the hypercube and drew out the antenna Alpha had created, planting it on the side of his helmet.

"Alpha, it's Neptune. Sorry we've been out of communication for so long; we haven't exactly had time to talk and relay our location and such. We're at Anchorage, standing under six feet of ice in minus one hundred degree temperature staring at a voice-activated door. Anything you can do to help get this thing open? Without my electronic diagnosis equipment, I can't do anything short of shouting random phrases at the door."

He stood still for a moment, leaning against the door. Cynthia cursed at her thermometer, watching as the temperature continued to drop as they stood motionless beneath the ice. She could feel the cold beginning to creep over her hands and feet as the suit shifted its heat regulation properties toward her core and away from her extremities.

"Alright. How will I know when you've got it?"

He listened for another moment before popping the antenna from his helmet and mounting it to the door. He stepped back before falling onto his back and gazing up at the top of the ice tunnel.

"So?"

"We wait. There isn't anything we can do until he cracks the code. Until then, curl up and try to stay warm."

He lay spread-eagle on the ground, totally ignoring his own advice at staying warm. Cynthia curled into a ball and shielded her hands between her knees and her chest, hoping her fingers wouldn't freeze off; if they did, wielding a sword would become ten times more complicated. She lacked the mental concentration James possessed and would have no idea how to even begin controlling her swords telepathically. She'd only barely gotten ahold of the basics; the more intimate points of swordplay were still Greek to her, even with t'ai chi and karate training. No jiu jitsu, no muay thai, no training of any kind could prepare her for using a sword, for she'd neglected to study any form of martial art incorporating the need to use a weapon of any kind. Hell, even fencing would have given her a fighting chance at using a sword.

The door thumped rather loudly. James stood without moving his arms or legs, shifting smoothly from laying to standing with no transitional movement in between. He strode to the massive door and tugged the antenna free. "Good?"

He chuckled over the line. "Excellent. Stick with me. I'll probably need some form of ordinance until I get to the leader of this city."

He wedged his fingers into the side of the door and tugged once, pulling the door open on surprisingly well-lubricated hinges. The hunk of metal had to have been at least a foot thick, definitely blast and weather-proof. The duo stepped into the small glass-encased chamber and slid the door shut, listening as it locked with a satisfying clunk. The chamber filled with a misty blue gas that wafted about them and had no smell that the filters would permit to enter their lungs. After a short moment, a tone rang and the door across the way opened, permitting them entrance to the encapsulated city.

Without a second of hesitation, James ran forward, using the mist for cover, and vaulted onto the roof of a nearby house. Cynthia mimicked him, following him deftly over the myriad of roofs, staying as silent and loose as possible to prevent any sort of impact noise from reaching the possibly sleeping inhabitants below. Only sparsely-grown streetlamps lit the avenues as they set about roof-hopping toward the center of the bubble, where a cluster of commercial buildings rose like many pointed spires arching toward the freedom of the outside air. To breach the bubble would be suicide, but the columns tried their damnedest, and with mirrored earnest the two silent assassins scaled one of the outer buildings, working their way up progressively taller structures until they found the tallest of the cluster, one that looked like a needle aimed directly toward the top dead center of the glass infrastructure.

"Blueprints, Alpha."

They stood motionless atop the second tallest building of the group, eying the tallest one a mere thirty feet before them. Cynthia gazed over the edge of the building and blinked. She doubted the suit had enough counteractive reflex technology to save her from a fall at their present height, and her resolve strengthened. She hadn't come so far just to fail and land in a broken pile of misery and ruin.

"Got it."

James backed up several steps, then took a running leap at the building. He seemed to vanish into the steel-and-glass composition.

"It's a projected wall. This building used to have a helicopter landing pad right where I'm standing."

Cynthia followed his lead, and just as she braced herself to splat against the girders like a bug on a windshield, she fell through the false curtain and landed on the concrete pad below, the giant H greeting her somewhat suddenly. She stood up and dusted herself off, drawing her sword and nodding once at James. He pressed a button on the nearby elevator control box. As though they were being welcomed, the doors slid open with a quiet ding.

"Something's not right. This is too easy. Shouldn't the city's defenses be kicking in to rebel against us?"

"This is a test, Cynthia. See if you can answer the question as you go."

He smashed a panel off the top of the elevator, hauling himself atop the carriage. Cynthia mimicked him, watching as he wrapped a hand confidently around one of the reinforced cables.

"Grab on."

She followed suit and he slashed the rigging just below their hands, but neither cart nor human moved.

"What?"

He chuckled. "The carriage is Styrofoam. We don't drop because we're standing on it. It doesn't drop because we're holding it up."

"So how do we do this?"

He dismounted. "You climb up since you're lighter. I'll hold the rope in place. When you get to the top, pull hard."

She swung hand-over-hand, not bothering to ask why she had to be the one to scale the rope. She knew that if his weight left the craft and climbed upward, they'd both crash downward to a bloody death below.

The task was boring and dark, though the night vision lens provided all the sight Cynthia needed. She reached the top within a matter of moments, then swung over to the steel elevator doors. With superhuman strength, she began lugging the mass of man and foam upward, digging and tugging and pulling as she braced herself against the door's threshold for balance. Before long, James's helmet came into view.

"Be on your guard. Alpha says this door leads to the leader's private room."

James leapt from the carriage and wedged his sword into the doorjamb. Cynthia released the cable and drew her own sword, leaning back against the door for support as her balance slipped from her control. The door slid out of the way and she backflipped into the room, landing gracefully and with her sword alight. James split his own and looked around.

The room was homey enough. Large, round oak coffee table in front of a hearth to their left, surrounded by a plush couch, loveseat, and recliner. Forward of the livingroom ensemble resided what looked to be a state-of-the-art kitchen and wet-bar. Directly in front of them stood a rather impressive king-sized canopy bed with a dark brown comforter and ivory curtains. To their right, a massive curtained window looked out over the city (though, given the night, the drapes were drawn and the view blocked). A small bureau with a mirror atop rested below the window. The carpet was cream-colored, though the round area rug they stood atop was plush and dark brown in color.

"This looks like a nice place to live," Cynthia commented softly.

"Though not so nice when there's nobody to share it with," a gentle voice called.

Both figures spun to see a woman stepping from a silent elevator left of the empty Styrofoam shaft. The doors closed quickly, leaving the trio to their discomfort.

The woman stood at least three inches shorter than Cynthia, possibly more, and had hair the color of ripe red apples that hung to her chin. Her eyes glittered a mysterious, warm brown as she gazed between the two. She held a steaming mug of coffee in her hands, clad as she was in an oversized black t-shirt and short pink shorts. She sipped from the mug, letting her eyes gaze between the pair before nodding gently.

"You must be the Elite Alumni."

Cynthia noticed that James had tightened his grip on his sword by a minute amount, so insignificant it probably could have gone unnoticed by virtually anyone. He was lobbying an attack.

"Well, come, sit down. Now that you've managed to get in and admire the place, I'm sure you'd like a moment to rest your legs, yes?"

She stepped between them and strode toward the kitchen, humming daintily all the while. Cynthia was perplexed. The woman was so calm and quiet, as though she wasn't the least bit troubled by intruders.

But the sound of her voice was intoxicating. Just listening to it made her feel compelled to strain her ears in hope of hearing more.

Without conscious thought to the contrary, she lounged on the couch, totally entranced by the woman's request.

"I'm Priscilla, by the way. I run this city."

Somewhere in Cynthia's brain, it registered that she should be attacking this woman and bringing death upon her, but the voice drowned out all reason.

"I like her," she commented quietly to James. He nodded, sitting alongside her on the couch.

"I think I like her too," he returned. Cynthia couldn't resist a giggle.

The air was starting to feel slightly muggy. It had an almost tantalizing quality to it. Strangely, Cynthia almost felt…relaxed. For the first time since their initial arrival on the planet, she was beginning to feel at home, which should have triggered warning bells within her head. The bells, however, were silent.

And a creeping warmness began to pool between her legs, filling her thighs and her hips with a teasing tingle. It was a feeling she hadn't had in a long time, and it unsettled her, pleasantly so. She hadn't had it often, and she'd only had it back on her own planet in her own timeline, when she had been alone with James, back when they'd referred to one another by their nicknames.

She was feeling, for the first time in a long time, sexual arousal.

She scraped at her helmet and depressurized it, dragging it leisurely over her head to rest on the end-table beside her; the helmet's coils couldn't keep the heat off her face. Even with a skin-tight suit reinforced by plate armor, she could feel her body reacting to the air, and the euphoria only seemed to grow stronger with her helmet aside. She could feel her breasts reacting, scratching irritably at the material they were bound within; her crotch heated up another several degrees and she began to feel very heady and out of control.

She gazed idly at James and thought he looked particularly sexy with his suit on, lounging on the couch without a word. He seemed to be staring straight ahead, but with the tinted visor she had no way of knowing. She wanted to remember him underneath the suit.

"Coffee?" a cozy voice called.

Cynthia turned and her gaze stilled on a steaming mug set before her on the coffee table. It smelled delicious, but what had her more intrigued were the nimble hands that had offered it to her. So delicate, so small and petite, but so dexterous and refined; her body quivered slightly as she imagined what those hands could do to her. Her breasts tingled; her stomach itched.

"Cream? Sugar?"

"I'll take some cream from the source," Cynthia drawled impatiently. Priscilla, dressed only in a pink kimono which conveniently lacked a sash to tie it closed, sat idly and watched rather unbothered as Cynthia slid toward her like a coiled serpent and bent over her like a hulking bear.

"Hey there, honey," she whispered, nuzzling the strange woman's cheek. "You look like the entrée off the menu."

Priscilla giggled, clearly acting the part, but Cynthia's intoxicated state blinded her into believing it was the laugh of an aroused person who had fallen in lust with her. She straddled the red-head, bringing their foreheads together as her eyes slid gently closed. "You're turning me on, honey. I can't let you get away with that."

Without really knowing what possessed her to act, she set her lips gently against the city leader's, teasing, taunting, experimenting with the woman she hoped to claim. She couldn't think. She couldn't feel. All she knew was that she was hot and bothered, and that this woman was the one to help her release her tension.

Priscilla stood slowly, dragging Cynthia up with her. They stumbled haphazardly to the bed, the robe dropping from the red-head's petite frame, her only clothing a pair of lacy black baby-doll panties that failed to cover the swell of her backside. Cynthia thought it was the most sexy thing she'd ever seen, and when the woman's breasts met her gaze, she succumbed to the arousal building within her stomach and growled as she pounced upon the woman, kissing with renewed fervor.

"I'm gonna have my way with you," she purred.

"And I'm gonna keep you here forever to do just that," the leader returned.

Without warning, the red-head was yanked from the bed by the scalp, followed by a loud crash that sounded of splintering glass. Cynthia's head cleared and her body settled in mere seconds, and she gazed about in a stupor, uncertain as to what had happened.

"I should've known the moment we entered," James's voice growled. He held Priscilla aloft by her soft red hair, her toes not touching the ground. Her face was contorted into a look of pure pain, tears streaking freely down her cheeks.

"Known…?"

"The air. It had a paramecium of some kind that clouded our minds with thoughts of lewd, promiscuous feelings and events. Obviously, this city's dear leader has an immunity to the airborne bacteria and uses it to seduce and kill her victims."

He lifted the woman higher while Cynthia struggled to regain control over her suddenly-wobbly legs. "So…she attempted to seduce us before killing us?"

"It would've worked…if I hadn't been born partially immune to this type of airborne bacterium. My carnal mind wanted to explode outward like a supernatural entity. My conscious mind realized what was happening and aired the room out by smashing the windows."

Priscilla whimpered as his hand shifted and she swung like a pendulum. Her hands and feet were bound uselessly by a glowing set of rings which presumably prevented movement beyond a certain degree. Cynthia shook her head, clearing the remaining thoughts, and breathed the clear air to refresh her mind before reclaiming her helmet.

"What should we do with her?"

James drew his sword and the woman cried out bleakly, more tears streaming down her pained face.

"P-please, don't kill me…"

She was so terrified, she could do no more than whisper, and Cynthia frowned in mute disgust as she watched the telltale liquid dripping from the suspended woman's feet. Fear indeed played a major role in the body's chemical functioning.

"Obviously, this hasn't ever happened to you, so you now experience fear at the idea of failure and death."

The woman whimpered. She shut her eyes tight. James stood still, watching silently as tears slipped down the woman's face.

"I…I-I didn't want to…I w-was forced…"

Both of the Elite Alumni paused. With his free hand, James tapped the side of the antenna raptly, standing stock still otherwise. "Alpha, come in."

Pause.

"Can you hear everything being said in the atmosphere?"

Pause.

"External microphone engaged. Uranus, speak aloud."

"And what do I say, exactly?"

Pause.

"Interface polygraph. See if you can read through my suit's biorhythms and find those of the external subject."

Pause.

"Now, you were saying?"

A beat passed in which all three figures remained silent while their minds processed what James had said. Priscilla sniffled.

"I was forced…I didn't want to do this…"

Pause.

"Continue," James intoned.

She shook. Gooseflesh erupted down her arms and legs, leaving her looking like a plucked chicken. "The One…has power like you can't imagine…I was one of the slaves. I was sixteen when it happened…"

"How did you end up out here?"

She sniffled. "There was…some sort of security flaw with the fortress I was sold to. Somehow it stopped working, I think…But instead of getting it repaired, our Tamer dragged us out here…a-and took over the old city. I…I…"

"You…?"

She gulped.

"Did you kill him?" Cynthia quietly interjected.

The devastated look on the woman's face said it all.

"So if you killed him, why are you still here?"

"I…I was threatened…I was told that my younger sister…she would be fourteen now…she…she would be k-killed if I didn't take over up here a-and run the city…"

"How long have you been out here?"

"T-two years. The fortress failed after one, and…it took nearly a year to get here and take over…"

"Check the database for a Priscilla, natural hair colored cherry-red, aged twenty," James muttered.

"I…I was told I had to be…warm and inviting…I h-had to use sex as a c-controller…"

"Have you killed others?"

"I…I was ordered to, b-but they're just c-c-catatonic right n-now…"

"Catatonic?"

"Th-the drug. It…it induces a-arousal and then puts the victim to s-sleep."

"And then?"

The woman glanced fleetingly out the smashed window, but that was all it took for Cynthia to connect the dots.

"The ice?"

Priscilla began bawling like a newborn, letting the crystalline tears pour unabashedly down her naked skin like raindrops on a glass window.

"Cryogenics. They're not just catatonic, they're probably comatose," James surmised. "They could very easily be braindead with how cold it is out there."

This seemed to make the woman cry even harder. "I d-didn't want to k-k-kill anyone! I h-h-_hate_ this!"

James released her hair and stepped back, letting the woman crumple to her knees and sob into her hands. He swiveled his helmet to face Cynthia. "It's time we get out of here. I have a feeling this one won't be a threat to us, and there'll be hell for her to pay if I'm wrong."

They both moved to the elevator and pushed the button, stepping easily into the expecting carriage

"WAIT!"

They turned. Instinctively, Cynthia stuck her foot across the threshold of the door, holding it open.

"T-take me with you!"

"You'll freeze to death," James stated rather plainly. "You wouldn't be able to survive trying to keep up with us."

"It's gotta be b-better than this," she cried, eyes bloodshot and unfocused.

"Priscilla, get some sleep. When you wake up in the morning, be the better person. Start over. Change this place into a livable environment, not a prison. Make everyone work together. Make this a _city_."

"I…I c-can't! It's too h-hard!"

"What we're doing is too hard. Fixing this city is the easiest thing you could do. It'll help us the most," she lied, trying to sweeten the deal in hope that the woman would bite the bait.

"A-alright…I'll t-try."

"Good. But first, get some sleep. It's been a long day."

Without a second glance, she withdrew her foot and let the elevator slide slowly down to ground level. The doors opened with a light ding, but an arm barred her path as she moved to leave.

"That was a once-only event, Uranus."

"Neptune?"

"We can't be setting people loose like that," he lisped, tugging the antenna free. "What if that person reports us to The One and allows our movements to be tracked? How can we fight off the horde that would be breathing down our backs? How could we ever hope to defeat Him if we don't have the advantage of surprise on our side?"

"We take people who have unfair odds stacked against them and try to turn them back to the right path, Neptune. Maybe somewhere in that brain of yours you've forgotten the importance of humanity as a collective, but I believe in the good of people and the spirit of the living. I have hope for that woman. I have hope that she can turn this around and make it right."

James stood still for a moment, silently blocking Cynthia's path out of the elevator carriage. Without warning, he turned and strode briskly away, and she couldn't help but wonder if she'd offended him, or worse, addled his brain further.

Things would only serve to inevitably get worse, either way.

"_What about Carl? We can't just leave him!"_

_Jimmy remained silent, striding purposefully away from the spire that had claimed his best friend's life. He knew they had to get out of the city as fast as possible, for the consequences of being captured would be severe at best. He passed building after building, working his way toward the houses rimming the city inside the dome. _

"_Hey! Neutron! Are you honestly going to leave Carl behind to get killed by those damned things?!"_

Stay calm. Forward. Stay calm. Forward. Stay calm. Forward. Don't look back. Don't look back. Don't look

"_Hey!"_

_He received a sharp clout to the back of the helmet, jarring his mantra aside. His stride never faltered, his pace only quickening. _

"_We need to get out."_

"_And leave Carl behind? What about those robo-cops?"_

"_Man, Jimmy, you're so cruel! This is worse than when Ultra-lord's partner got left in Robo-fiend's lair and was melted into scrap metal for tin cans."_

"_Sheen, now's not the time for Ultralord," Libby chastised gently. "Jim, Cindy's right. What happened to Carl?"_

_Silence. The group continued migrating toward the edge of the city, toward the entrance they'd forged. _

"_He sacrificed himself so that I could get us home."_

"_And you let him?"_

"_IT WAS THE ONLY WAY!"_

_So loud and fierce was his roar through the helmet's decibel amplifiers that the windows of nearby buildings exploded in a torrent of glass and bent steel. _

"_I couldn't save him. There was no alternative. And he was right in saying I'm the only one who can get us home. His sacrifice was for our survival. I won't let him die in vain."_

_They continued forward, albeit much more uneasily and disgruntled than they'd began. Everyone remained silent and considered their own thoughts, hoping they could avoid upsetting the distressed man leading them away from the spire._

_A siren wailed loudly behind them and sounded to be closing in. They never slowed pace._

"_CITIZENS. YOU ARE UNDER ARREST FOR DEFILING THIS, OUR GLORIOUS CITY, AND FOR STEALING THOSE, OUR PRECIOUS WEAPONS."_

_The mechanical giant landed in front of the group, but they continued walking toward it undeterred. Without thinking, Jimmy slotted what looked to be a white handlebar grip into his right hand as easily as though it had been made to fit there._

"_HALT, CITIZENS, LEST YOU BE HELD IN CONTEMPT OF THE LAW AND HELD IN INCARCERATION FOR DISTURBING THE PEACE, TRESPASSING, AND DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY. OUR ESTEEMED LEADER WILL NOT TOLERATE SUCH ACTS OF INSOLENCE."_

_Without being able to utter any further syllables, the giant landed belly-up on the asphalt with a loud screech and a thunderous _thud_. James lashed twice more with his extended sword and severed the titan's head and left arm as though he had sliced through warm butter. _

"_Keep walking," Jimmy muttered darkly._

_The remaining three huddled close to their determined leader, waiting for his next command. They all felt that he'd assumed control as the leader in some way, though none of them could describe why with readily available words._

_His step faltered once and only once. "Divert," he called, migrating directly to his right. He forced open the front door of a house that had the beginning traces of dilapidation and mold seeping through its cracks. As soon as his company entered, he slammed the door shut and thrust a large couch against it. He pulled the moth-eaten drapes closed on every window around the entire house before returning to the common room to regroup._

"_It seems there are two of those guards attempting to close up the hole I made earlier. Since none of you know how to operate your weaponry, we'll be holding out here until the scouters assume we've escaped or perished by alternative means. This can help us to gain intel about our location and the items we currently have in our possession. I'm curious as to how the bracelets work in conjunction with these power suits, but I have no further information about them thusfar. Much testing will have to be done."_

"_So what do we need to do?"_

"_First, we need to figure out our current location. I haven't any idea where the triangulation of our current whereabouts is, and I doubt any GPS system I possess at present can read the coded satellite signals undetected, so we'll have to scavenge manually. We also need to determine what exactly has happened here so we know how to counter it."_

"_You aren't suggesting to help this godforsaken planet, are you?"_

"_To suggest something so imbecilic would be suicide."_

_He strode away. Cindy wondered momentarily if he'd called _her_ the imbecile, or merely the idea._

"_Scrounge the area. Find anything useful."_

_No more than five minutes later found the group of four gathered around the diningroom table. In the center lay a map of the surrounding area, an empty cardboard box for "Nuteries," twenty-seven cents comprising of two dimes, a nickel, and two pennies, and an assortment of cutlery utensils including a porcelain knife and a steel whisk, among other spatulas and spoons of different uses._

"_This is what the house had for us?" Jimmy asked rhetorically. He scooped up the map and located the small star surrounded by a large black ring. City: H-405 was marked near the ring. _

"_Austin. Austin, Texas. The capitol city was converted into this domed society of trapped humans. I assume they all fall into forced worship or death by execution, possibly publicly. Perhaps we aren't so far lost after all."_

_He trailed his finger southeast on the map until he rested at a small red dot. According to the map legend, it was classified as an abandoned outpost, though it bore the name Retroville nonetheless. _

"_It's several days' walk from here. Given that I lack any form of positioning system, it could be a week before we get there if we don't get lost. The only indicator of the proper direction is what looks like a horse trail that is no longer used._

_A thinly-dotted blue line meandered between the city and the outpost, seemingly following the highway and the former exit ramp, though if the brief time spent outside the dome were any comparison to the rest of the locale, finding a highway would be nigh impossible. _

_He laid the map down and planted his palms against the table, facing his wrists inward and leaning over the map like an army general. "We will need to travel south to figure out what exactly has happened here. If there is even one hapless stroke of luck between the four of us, my lab might still be in-tact, and we can learn everything we'll need to from there. I have enough resources in my hypercube to access most of the lab's primary functions and some of its ancillaries."_

"_What exactly DO you have in that hypercube?"_

"_Not enough that I could get us out of here. Seeing as I originally believed this would be a graduation present for everyone, I only brought the bare minimum of supplies, none of which will help us in our current situation."_

_The way in which he finished his guarded description of the contents of his hypercube had Cindy convinced that he was hiding something, possibly very many somethings that he couldn't disclose given the company he kept._

"_This box of 'Nuteries' is very interesting."_

_He plucked the small cardboard box from the table. It looked as though it could hold a deck of playing cards and little else._

"_Why so?"_

"_Batteries that are rechargeable, have a charge that lasts for one-hundred-fifty hours at a time, and run based on microscopic nuclear synthesis. Curious."_

"_Why curious?"_

"_The ability to contain nuclear energy within a small, tri-cell canister is rather astounding. This world definitely knows something about technology we don't."_

_He dropped the box and grasped hold of the money. "Amazing that standard currency has survived this long."_

_The change clattered to the table. Last were the cutlery items. _

"_These could potentially be useful. A porcelain knife, a steel whisk, a wooden spatula, a steel spoon, an ice cream scoop, and a pasta spoon. The things people leave behind in a house say a great deal about who they are and what they find necessary in life."_

_He slid all five of the utensils into his hypercube._

"_So now what?"_

_He turned to the other three. "Pick a room, a bed, something. Everyone needs to get some sleep; we won't be making any further movements until night at the soonest, though more likely morning. I'll have decided what to do by then."_

_And with no further comment, he departed for the common room, leaving the remaining three to look between themselves._

"_We've gotten into some crazy situations before," Libby commented, "but I think this one takes the cake. We…we lost Carl…"_

_Everyone's heads bowed in silent agreement and prayer for a loyal friend they would never see again. With such a grim start to an unexpected adventure, Cindy felt innately that things would certainly get to be terribly worse before they'd become remotely better._


End file.
